The Chorus is fortunate to have works commissioned especially for Spring performances.

Jamestown 2007 Celebration

The invitation to compose a work for the Chorus came from Chorus Director Ann Porter, a longtime colleague and friend with whom composer Deen Entsminger worked as a high school choral director in Richmond. Godspeed, Part I came to life in May, 2007, as a commemoration of the journey of the first settlers who came to Jamestown in 1607.

Entsminger has been a music educator for 33 years. He has earned degrees from the Shenandoah Conservatory of Music, Virginia Commonwealth University, and Florida State. He coordinates the undergraduate music education program; directs the chamber singers; teaches music theory, composition, secondary choral methods, undergraduate and graduate classes in choral conducting; and mentors students in the undergraduate honors and graduate music education programs, as well as supervising student teachers at Belmont University (Nashville, TN). Entsminger has been a guest conductor at festivals in Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, South Carolina, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Virginia, and in March, 1998, conducted the West Virginia All-State Chorus.

Entsminger is a member of Music Educator’s National Conference and a life member of the American Choral Director’s Association. He has published numerous compositions with Colla Voce and Musical Source Publishing and is the recipient of numerous honors and awards.

His Godspeed-Part I premiered at the Kimball Theatre (Williamsburg, VA) in May, 2007.

The world premiere of the Second Movement of Godspeed, conducted by the composer, Deen Entsminger, will take place at the 45th Season Gala, and will include a reprise of Godspeed-Part I.

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40th Anniversary Celebration

In 2005, Teresa M. Cobarrubia Yoder wrote Tis You That Are The Music to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Chorus. The work was based on a Listening, a poem by Amy Lowell, from where the lyrics come. Lowell was born into an aristocratic New England family the also produced the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Robert Lowell.

Yoder is a Walsingham Academy (Williamsburg, VA) music teacher, pastoral music director for Immaculate Conception Catholic Church (Hampton, VA), and founding member of Musica Intima (a chamber trio). Yoder’s compositions have been performed at the Virginia Music Educators Conference, Old Dominion University, Scherzo Music Club, and other venues in Virginia, Ohio, Washington DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York.

Click here to listen to a sample of Yoder’s work.
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