Honor Choir Details
Three state-wide honor choirs will participate in the conference: The Junior High/Middle School Honor Choir for children in grades 7-9; the High School Honor Choir for 10-12 graders; and the Collegiate Honor Choir for college students.
The 2023 All-State Honor Choir Conductors are...
Jr. High/Middle School: Ms. Sherry Blevins
High School: Dr. Stan Engebretson
Collegiate: Dr. Meredith Y. Bowen
Click on each Honor Choir below for more details!
2023
Repertoire
Middle School Honor Choir
Ad Astra by Jake Narverud (SATB)
https://www.jwpepper.com/Ad-Astra/10846403.item#.YvqeZvHMJ1A
Waiting for the Moon by Sherry Blevins (SAB with opt. solo, opt. narration and piano)
Information on how to purchase this piece of music will be available soon. Cost is $2.50 per copy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTDOIIp0oSU
Commision Piece - Completed by December 1st.
Praise His Holy Name by Keith Hampton (SATB)
https://www.jwpepper.com/Praise-His-Holy-Name/3168358.item#.Yw0RWSHMJ1A
A Tapestry of Music by Sherry Blevins (SATB with piano with opt. solo)
https://www.jwpepper.com/A-Tapestry-of-Music/10984376.item#.YvqgM_HMJ1A
High School Honor Choir
Alleluia (SATB) – by Jake Runestad, Jake Runestad Music LLC, Publisher ID: jR0035 (This piece is tricky, give it a little extra preparation time). This piece is available through jakerunestad.com - https://jakerunestad.com/store/alleluia/
Only in Sleep (SSAATTBB, A cappella) – by Eriks Ešenvalds, Music Baltica, Publisher ID: MB1265
Hallelujah, from Cry of Jeremiah (SSAATB) – by Rosephanye Powell, Fred Bock Music, Publisher ID: 00119062
Homeward Bound (SATB, piano four hands) – arr. Wilberg, Alfred Music Publishing, Publisher ID: 38070
Let the River run (SATB) – Craig Hella Johnson, Hal Leonard Corporation, Publisher ID: 08754596
Baba Yetu (SSATBB) – Christopher Tin, Hal Leonard Corporation, Publisher ID: 00293110
An Irish Blessing (SATB) – James Moore, GIA Publications, (Octavo published separately in their Come to the Feast series)
Collegiate Honor Choir
Sorida – Rosephanye Powell (3296959)
Stabat Mater – Sulpitia Cesis
Love: Then and Still – Susan LaBarr (10994190)
Precious Lord – Thomas Dorsey arr. Arnold Sevier (3091394)
Sigue – Ivette Herryman Rodriguez (WLG173)
2023 Middle School Conductor: Sherry Blevins
Sherry Blevins believes that music education transforms lives by building a sense of community as it touches souls and heals hearts. She is a music educator, conductor, clinician, and more recently, a lyricist and composer. Since 2017, she has been honored to compose for a variety of singers and ensembles across the United States including Tennessee All-State Treble Choir, renowned soprano, Rebecca Cook-Carter, the Piedmont Invitational Choral Festival, South Carolina Music Educator’s National Conference Clinic, Young Voices of the Carolinas, St. Andrews University, and many other all-county and honors choirs. According to Vincent Oakes, President of the American Choral Director’s Association – Southern Division and Artistic Director of the Chattanooga Boys Choir, “Sherry Blevins’ music is as engaging and enriching for the singer as it is enjoyable for the listener…. With beautifully crafted melodies, tuneful harmonies, and supportive accompaniments, her compositions should find a preferred place with more choirs in the near future.”
Sherry Blevins is the winner of the 2018 Claremont Chorale’s Composition Contest. Her winning piece was premiered by the Claremont Chorale in California in March of 2019. In the summer of 2018, she was one of seven composers nationwide selected as a composing fellow at the CORO Composer’s Institute in Iowa, where she premiered another Hinshaw publication. She was recently invited to conduct the American Choral Directors Association Treble Honor Choir which will be singing her composition, A Tapestry of Music (SSA) for the 2020 Southern Region ACDA Conference in Alabama.
Aside from composing, Sherry frequently serves as a clinician for honor choirs, adjudicator for festivals, and leads workshops on choral techniques and the motivation of singers across the Southeastern United States.
Sherry Blevins has a bachelor’s degree in Music Education with a concentration in voice from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and a master’s degree in Music Education with a concentration in Choral Conducting from Appalachian State University. She is a Supervisor of Student Teachers for Appalachian State University where she was recently selected for the Outstanding Adjunct Teaching Award for the College of Education. She currently resides in Huntersville, North Carolina.
2023 High School Conductor: Dr. Stan Engebretson
Stan Engebretson came to Washington, DC in 1990 as the Director of Choral Studies at George Mason University and Director of Music at the historic New York Avenue Presbyterian Church (aka “The Lincoln Church”). In 2005, he became the Artistic Director of the National Philharmonic Chorale. Earlier positions were at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, University of Texas Permian in Midland-Odessa, TX, and Bismarck State College, ND. He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in piano and voice from the University of North Dakota, and a DMA in conducting from Stanford University. Additional study grants allowed him to work with legendary choral mentors of our time, including Eric Ericson, Robert Shaw, Gregg Smith, Richard Westenburg, Roger Wagner, and Margaret Hillis.
Engebretson is a frequent guest conductor and clinician throughout the United States and abroad, most often in Germany, but also Switzerland, Italy, France, Russia, Lithuania, South Korea, and in Iceland where he was a Senior Specialist Scholar for the Fulbright Foundation."
2023 Collegiate Conductor: Meredith Y. Bowen
Dr. Meredith Bowen is a nationally recognized conductor-teacher, scholar, and singer whose work empowers students to find their voice through culturally relevant teaching and music making. As the Director of Choral Activities at Radford University in Radford, VA, she conducts three ensembles and teaches undergraduate and graduate classes in choral conducting, vocal pedagogy, choral methods, choral literature, and supervises student teachers. She serves on the Choral Advisory Council for the Institute for Composer Diversity, as President-elect for the Virginia chapter of the American Choral Directors Association, is an inaugural member of and Artistic Administrator for mirabai, a professional women’s ensemble, and is on faculty for the Choral Music Experience Institute and the Virginia Governor’s School for the Visual and Performing Arts and Humanities.
Bowen is an active guest conductor, clinician, and presenter. Her recent conducting invitations include all-state honor choirs in Michigan, Virginia, and Kansas; and honor choirs from Alaska to Kenya to Carnegie Hall. She was one of six conductors selected to represent the United States by the American Choral Directors Association International Exchange Program in Nairobi, Kenya. Bowen’s two current scholarship interests are restoring, publishing, and performing music written by 17th-century women and the impact of socially-conscious programming. She presented her research on restoring convent music at the National American Choral Directors Association Conference and contributed an article on the same subject in the Choral Journal. Four of her restored editions are published by Boosey & Hawkes and two editions appear on the mirabai ‘s inaugural recording, “ecstatic songs.” She is slated to conduct the premiere the second movement of Andrea Clearfield’s “Home in Me” with a treble honor choir at Carnegie Hall produced by National Concerts.
Previous to her appointment at Radford, Bowen taught K-12 general music, choir, and band in Lansing, MI, and was the Artistic Director of multiple ensembles in Michigan including: Sistrum - Lansing Women’s Chorus, Holland Chorale, and the Battle Creek Girls Chorus. Bowen holds a B.S. in Music Education from West Chester University, an M.M. and a D.M.A. in Choral Conducting from Michigan State University.