Choral Composition Festival to Feature World Premiere

The Ithaca College Choir’s world premiere perfor-mance of Robert Maggio’s Aristotle will highlight the 19th annual Choral Composition Festival on Saturday, November 14, in Ford Hall Auditorium. The 7:00 p.m. concert concludes a day of activities that includes performances of new works by choirs from five upstate high schools. All performances are free and open to the public.

The participating high schools include the West Genesee High School Chorus, under the direction of David Norman; the Corning West High School Occidentals, directed by Lorrene Adams M.M. ’94; the Ithaca High School Choir, conducted by Arthur Loomis; the Waterloo High School Varsity Ensemble, conducted by Susan Avery M.M. ’82; and the Palmyra High School Choir, conducted by Ann Beaucage. The festival begins at 10:00 a.m. with a concert featuring the high school ensembles, followed by open rehearsals for the evening concert and various workshops, concluded by the evening performance.

Robert Maggio was born in New Jersey on January 8, 1964. He began piano studies at age 7, started composing at 15, and completed a one-act musical comedy the following year. He began private study of music theory and composition at 17, graduated magna cum laude with honors in music from Yale University in 1986, and subsequently received master’s and doctoral degrees in music composition from the University of Pennsylvania. His teachers included Jonathan Berger, George Crumb, Michael Friedman, Jay Reise, Chinary Ung, and Richard Wernick.

Published by Theodore Presser Company, Maggio’s music has been commissioned and performed by musicians and organizations including the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Kennedy Center, Oakland East Bay Symphony, Civic Orchestra of Chicago, Aspen Music Festival, American Dance Festival, Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors Festival, Detroit Chamber Winds, Meridian Arts Ensemble, National Orchestral Association, Yale Repertory Theater, and many others.

Maggio is the recipient of a Fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation for 1998–99. During this time, he will be collaborating on a new dance work with choreographer Leah Stein and Network for New Music in Philadelphia, to be premiered in spring 1999.

Maggio lives in Media, Pennsylvania, and is associate professor of music theory and composition in the School of Music at Chester University. His music can be heard on the CRI label.

The Ithaca College Choral Composition Contest developed as a way to encourage the creation and performance of new choral music and to establish the Ithaca College Choral Series.