In Search of Inspiration: Interviews with Notable Choral Conductors
Edited by Anna Gentry
15 pioneering and diverse collegiate choral conductors (Featuring: George Lynn • George Eugene Umberson • Donald Neuen • Paris Rutherford • Peter Bagley • Charlene Archibeque • Eph Ehly • Joseph Flummerfelt • Joan Conlon • Ann Howard Jones • Simon Carrington • Earl Rivers • Henry Leck • Hilary Apfelstadt • André Thomas • Maria Guinand -- biographies included) answer a series of fundamental questions: How do they motivate students, manage outside professional commitments, and satisfy administrators? This international group of experts share wisdom and expertise, discussing memorable educational moments on the podium and in the classroom, recounting stirring experiences in the concert hall, and sharing stories about their work with historic figures in music. They also offer insights on programming repertoire and explain how they have successfully navigated a career in music. These interviews document the through lines within the choral art—elements of performance and mentorship stemming from such luminaries as Julius Herford and Robert Shaw that connect so many of the great conductors. A fascinating and relevant read for any choral conductor or music educator, In Search of Inspiration explores the choral art through extraordinary 20th- and 21st-century voices whose artistry and influence will be felt for generations to come.
Bios
Gregory Gentry is the former Director of Choral Performance at ASU School of Music (2004-2012). He has taught and mentored more than 100 graduate (masters and doctoral) students through conducting, performance and research degrees at three R1 institutions: Arizona State University, University of Colorado, and University of Alabama. Through his work—from all-state choirs, to festival choirs, high school leadership choirs, church choirs, and university choirs—he has positively influenced thousands of high schoolers and undergraduates as well. Gentry has welcomed and worked with touring choirs, such as the Fisk Jubilee Singers under the direction of Dr. Paul Kwami (through a grant from the NAACP), Voces8, ASTER Women’s Chamber Choir, as well as his collaborative work with the Boulder Bach Festival. He has guest conducted throughout the United States, and Europe, including St. Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City and Basiliica dei Santi XII Apostoli, Rome, as well as Catholic Cathedral of St. Mary and St. Boniface, Plymouth, UK.
Dr. Gentry’s university choirs have performed for the National Collegiate Choral Organization (NCCO), American Choral Directors Association (ACDA), National Association for Music Education (NAfME), Colorado Music Educators Association (CMEA), Society for American Music (SAM), and College Music Society (CMS). His edition of Jean-Philippe Rameau’s “Cor meum et caro mea” (Fred Bock Music Publishers) was premiered at the ACDA National Conference by the National High School Honor Choir. The Gregory Gentry Choral Series (Fred Bock, distributed by Hal Leonard) includes forgotten choral gems such as “Prairie Sunset” by Cecil Effinger, “Sing Unto the Lord” by George Lynn, Hall Johnson’s stirring arrangement of “The Star Spangled Banner,” and Wray Lundquist’s epic “Johnny’s Gone Marching.”
In both professional and academic settings, Gregory Gentry has prepared and performed great choral masterworks. From his Phoenix Symphony conducting debut to sold-out audiences with Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms, to his conducting more than 300 instrumentalists and singers in both William Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast and Maurice Duruflé’s Requiem, Gentry has shown his artistic expertise, management skills, and sincere versatility. He has prepared more than 30 world and regional premiere works—including Ozymandias: to Sell a Planet (2022) by Drew Hemenger (with the Boulder Philharmonic), Reflections on a Mexican Garden (2018) by Kevin Padworski (with the New England Symphony), Tito’s Say (2010) by Arizona composer James DeMars (where Dr. Gentry was honored by the Mexican Consulate at Tempe’s Gammage Auditorium), as well as works by John Adams, Osvaldo Golijov, Arvo Pärt, and Mark Grey’s Enemy Slayer: A Navajo Oratorio [Naxos 2009] with an English/Navajo libretto by Laura Tohe (with the Phoenix Symphony).
Gentry’s former graduate students are teaching and conducting at universities across the country, including the State University of New York, William & Mary, San Jose State University, Virginia State University, Waldorf University, Morehead State University, Scottsdale Community College, University of Virginia, as well as conducting or singing in ensembles worldwide such as Conspirare, Phoenix Chorale, True Concord Voices, Graindelavoix (Belgium), Gimhae City Choir (South Korea) and Anúna (Ireland).
With a strong public music teacher background, Dr. Gentry is an excellent and collaborative educator. He is a proponent of the solo voice and emphasizes the use of vocal science as the foundation for his approach to artistic ensemble singing. He is past president of the Arizona state chapter of the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA, 2010-2012), during which time he introduced the electronic format for the state newsletter and the use of QR codes for performance programs. He is also the founder of Southwest Liederkranz, an annual international symposium for select choral professionals.
Anna Gentry has been teaching--as Honors Disciplinary Faculty at ASU, both at the School of Music and CISA--since 2005. As an musical arts historian and professional performer, Anna Wheeler Gentry made her Lincoln Center [New York] concert debut in 2003 on the concert series Autumn in New York: Vernon Duke at 100. In April 2011, she presented her research and concert performance entitled “Vladimir Dukelsky: Russian Undertones with American Overtones” during the Prokofiev Festival at the P. I. Tchaikovsky Conservatory of Music, Moscow, Russia (broadcast on Radio Russia).
Gentry's projects have garnered support from the American Multi-Cinema Foundation, Yip Harburg Foundation, American Music Research Center, and the Society for American Music. She is a fellow with the American Music Research Center (AMRC) at the University of Colorado-Boulder, a member of Southwest Liederkranz, as well as [American] Actors Equity, and the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society. Her research has been published by Johns Hopkins, Gale, McFarland, Continuum UK, Bloomsbury Methuen, Music Library Association, and others. She is editor of, and contributor to the book In Search of Inspiration: Interviews with Notable Choral Conductors (GIA, 2021), and author of Politics on Broadway: Controversy in Red and Black (Great River Learning, 2013).
As a soprano soloist and crossover artist, she has performed operatic roles (Mozart, Britten, Gilbert & Sullivan, Persichetti), musical theatre (Sondheim, Bacharach, Gershwin, Lerner and Loewe, Rodgers and Hammerstein), as well as concert works (Stravinsky, Charpentier, Saint-Saëns, Brahms, Haydn) in cities across the country. As a stage director and production dramaturg, she has done work for the Phoenix Symphony, University of Colorado's College of Music, University of Missouri-Kansas City, Black Theatre Troupe, Arizona State University, University of Alabama, Heart of America Shakespeare Festival and the former ASU Sundome. Gentry has studied voice with Michael Cousins of the Metropolitan Opera, Arlene Augér at the Aspen Music School, and Randi Marrazzo of the Opera Company of Philadelphia, coached repertoire with Tom Jaber at the Academy of Vocal Arts, conducting with George Lynn, and studied jazz piano and improvisation with Bob Arnold of the Glenn Miller Orchestra.
