Leading the Renewal of Sacred Music
Summer School Faculty
Sir James MacMillan, CBE
James MacMillan is the pre-eminent Scottish composer of his generation. He first attracted attention with the acclaimed BBC Proms premiere of The Confession of Isobel Gowdie (1990). His percussion concerto Veni, Veni Emmanuel(1992) has received over 500 performances worldwide by orchestras including London Symphony Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, New York and Los Angeles Philharmonics and Cleveland Orchestra. Other major works include the cantata Seven Last Words from the Cross (1993), Quickening (1998) for soloists, children's choir, mixed choir and orchestra, the operas Inès de Castro(2001) and The Sacrifice (2005-06), St John Passion (2007), St Luke Passion(2013) and Symphony No.5: 'Le grand Inconnu' (2018).
He was featured composer at Edinburgh Festival (1993, 2019), Southbank Centre (1997), BBC’s Barbican Composer Weekend (2005) and Grafenegg Festival (2012). His interpreters include soloists Evelyn Glennie, Colin Currie, Jean-Yves Thibaudet and Vadim Repin, conductors Leonard Slatkin, Sir Andrew Davis, Marin Alsop and Sir Donald Runnicles, choreographer Christopher Wheeldon and stage director Katie Mitchell. His recordings can be found on BMG/RCA Red Seal, BIS, Chandos, Naxos, Hyperion, Coro, Linn and Challenge Classics.
Recent highlights include MacMillan’s Stabat Mater for The Sixteen streamed from the Sistine Chapel and premieres of a Trombone Concerto for Jörgen van Rijen, the armistice oratorio All the Hills and Vales Along, the 40-voice motet Vidi aquam, and Christmas Oratorio streamed in 2021 by NTR Dutch Radio from the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. The annual Cumnock Tryst festival was founded by the composer in 2014 in his childhood town in Scotland.
Gabriel Crouch
Gabriel Crouch is Director of Choral Activities and Professor of the Practice in Music at Princeton University. He began his musical career as an eight-year-old in the choir of Westminster Abbey, where his solo credits included a Royal Wedding, and performances which placed him on the solo stage with Jessye Norman and Sir Laurence Olivier. After completing a choral scholarship at Trinity College, Cambridge, he was offered a place in the renowned a cappella group The King’s Singers in 1996. In the next eight years he made a dozen recordings on the BMG label (including a grammy nomination), and gave more than 900 performances in almost every major concert venue in the world. Since moving to the USA in 2005 he has built an international profile as a conductor and director, with recent engagements in Indonesia, Hawaii and Australia as well as Europe and the continental United States. In 2008 he was appointed musical director of the British early music ensemble ‘Gallicantus’, with whom he has released six recordings under the Signum label to rapturous reviews, garnering multiple ‘Editor’s Choice’ awards in Gramophone Magazine, Choir and Organ Magazine and the Early Music Review, and, for the 2012 release ‘The Word Unspoken’, a place on BBC Radio’s CD Review list of the top nine classical releases of the year. His recording of Lagrime di San Pietro by Orlando di Lasso was shortlisted for a Gramophone Award in 2014, and his follow-up recording – Sibylla (featuring music by Orlandus Lassus and Dmitri Tymoczko) was named ’star recording’ by Choir and Organ magazine in the summer of 2018. His most recent release is Mass for the Endangered, a new composition by Sarah Kirkland Snider released on the Nonesuch/New Amsterdam labels, which has garnered high acclaim from the New York Times, Boston Globe, NPR’s ‘All Things Considered’ and elsewhere.
Timothy McDonnell, D.M.A.
Conductor, Timothy McDonnell is the Director of Sacred Music at Hillsdale College, where he leads the Chapel Choir and oversees the Choral Scholars program. Before coming to Hillsdale, Dr. McDonnell led the graduate program in Sacred Music at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C from 2016-2021, where he also served as the Director of Choral Studies. From 2008 to 2015, McDonnell was the Director of Choral Activities at Ave Maria University, in Naples, FL. While at Ave Maria, he was chairman of the music department for 8 years and taught music theory, counterpoint, orchestration, and conducting. Prior to Ave Maria University, Dr. McDonnell held an appointment at the Pontifical North American College in Vatican City as the master of the music chapel, where he oversaw some 20 sung liturgies per week.
Dr. McDonnell has worked with several professional ensembles, including as harpsichordist for the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, orchestra assistant at Opera Philadelphia, conductor of the Symphonic Chorus of the Southwest Florida Symphony Orchestra, and founder of The Symphonic Chorale of Southwest Florida (now Choral Artistry). McDonnell has been guest conductor with the Salisbury Symphony Orchestra (MD), the Southwest Florida Symphony Orchestra, and the Naples Philharmonic.
In 2013 McDonnell was a finalist for the American Prize in choral conducting for his performance of Mozart’s Requiem, and in 2014 he took third place in the American Prize for his performance of Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem. His 2019 performance of Mozart’s Vesperae Solennes de Confessore garnered 2nd place in the American Prize Choral Conducting Competition in 2020. Dr. McDonnell has collaborated as choirmaster with several leading conductors including Andrey Boreyko, Carlos Miguel Prieto, Cristian Macelaru, and Robert Page. In 2018 he collaborated with Gustavo Dudamel in a performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony at the Kennedy Center as part of an international tour of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Dr. McDonnell is active as a composer and arranger. His work has been performed by orchestras around the world, including the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, the Southwest Florida Symphony Orchestra, The Kennett Symphony, and the Chamber Orchestra of Flanders. McDonnell was a finalist for the 2014 American Prize in composition for his choral-orchestral work, Sub tuum praesidium. Again in 2019, McDonnell was a finalist for the American Prize for his choral-orchestral work, Spoon River Triptych.
Dr. McDonnell has served as conductor/faculty for the Church Music Association of America’s annual Colloquium. He has also been on the conducting faculty with the Catholic Sacred Music Project, where he collaborated with Sir James MacMillan in 2021 and Martin Baker in 2022.
James Jordan, Ph.D., D.Mus.
Grammy-nominated conductor James Jordan is recognized and praised throughout the musical world as one of America’s pre-eminent conductors, recording artists, writers, music psychologists and innovators in choral music. He was described as a “visionary” by Choral Journal, which cited his book Evoking Sound as a “must read.” His more than 40 books explore both the philosophical and spiritual basis of musicianship, as well as aspects of choral rehearsal teaching and learning, and they are considered to be essential references in the conducting profession. Dr. Jordan is Professor of Conducting and Director of Choral Studies at Westminster Choir College of Rider University. At Westminster, he serves as the Seventh Conductor of the 102 year old acclaimed Westminster Choir as well as conductor for the renowned Westminster Symphonic Choir. He is also director of the Westminster Conducting Institute and co-director of the Choral Institute at Oxford. (rider.edu/Oxford) He is artistic director and conductor of the professional choral ensemble, The Same Stream (thesamestreamchoir.com)
His recordings with the Westminster Williamson Voices have garnered wide critical acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic. Choir and Organ wrote about their Grammy-nominated recording Annelies, “Jordan’s instinctive understanding of the score makes this a profound and emotionally charged experience.” 2018-2019 will mark the release of three new recordings with him as conductor: Silence into Light with the Westminster Williamson Voices; Songs of the Questioner with The Same Stream Choir featuring the music of Thomas LaVoy, Dan Forrest, Peter Relph and Paul Mealor; and Serenity-The Music of Paul Mealor, also with The Same Stream Choir. The 10 CD’s under his direction are available through iTunes and Amazon. His work with The Same Stream Choir will also be seen in a new video documentary and profile released by J.W. Pepper and available for viewing at thesamestreamchoir.com.
Dr. Jordan’s career and publications have been devoted to innovative educational changes in the choral art, which have been embraced around the world. 2017-18 has marked the publication of six new books. Inside the Choral Rehearsal is a landmark book applying the Music Learning Theory of Edwin Gordon to the choral rehearsal. Additional new titles are Conductor as Prism, Conductor as Architect, The Complete Choral Warm-Up Exercises (with Jesse Borower and Brian Sengdala), The Anatomy of Tone (with Sean McCarther and Kathy Price) and The Moral Acoustics of Sound. Learn more at Giamusic.com/Jordan. 2019 will see the publication of four new books: The Musician’s Abundance, Movement Warm-ups for Choral Ensembles, Conductor as Architect and Discovering Improvisation through Chant, co-authored with Gary Graden and Westminster students Ari Carillo and Christian Koller.
His residencies, master classes and guest conducting have taken him throughout the United States, Canada, Europe and Australia. He made his Carnegie Hall debut in 2015, conducting the New York premiere of Paul Mealor’s Stabat Mater. He will begin touring with The Same Stream later in 2018. In November 2015, Dr. Jordan conducted the world premiere of Paul Mealor’s First Symphony: Passiontide, in Scotland. In 2016, he conducted the Westminster Williamson Voices, the first college choir to appear in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s MetLiveArts series, in a performance of the virtuosic Kanon Pokajanen by Arvo Pärt.
James Jordan has been honored as a distinguished alumnus of Temple University, where he has been inducted into the University’s Hall of Fame. In 2016, he received the distinguished alumni medal from Susquehanna University. He was awarded the distinguished Doctor of Music degree by the University of Aberdeen in Scotland in 2014 to honor his artistry and contributions to choral music throughout the world. The University, established in 1485, has awarded degrees throughout its history to only two Americans: Dr. Jordan and Morten Lauridsen. He shares this honor with Gustav Holst, Benjamin Britten and Dame Joan Sutherland.