Amy Gordon is a composer, arranger, singer-songwriter, and vocalist in Los Angeles, CA. She is an active choral composer, including being the composer-in-residence for Nova Vocal Ensemble. She has been commissioned to write and arrange pieces for Choral Arts Initiative, Loyola Marymount University Concert Choir, Nova Vocal Ensemble, The Los Angeles Belles, The South Bay Chamber Singers, Ramona Convent Secondary School Chamber Choir, Graham Middle School Vocal Ensemble, and more. Her music has been described as melodic and accessible, yet with surprising harmonic twists. She is influenced by the musical styles of Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, and Steve Reich. She loves setting poetry to music and bringing out the meaning of the text through music. She has won multiple awards, including the first annual Jim MacMillan Prize in Composition, 2nd place in the Corinfesta International Competition for Choral Composition, and multiple ASCAP Plus Awards.

In addition to composing classical and choral music, she is also an active media composer and singer-songwriter. She composes for films and web broadcasts. Her score for The Turner Exhibit (2018) won best film score by The Monkey Bread Tree Film Awards. Her song “One Door Opens” was named a finalist in the SongDoor International Songwriting competition.

She is an active educator and teaches Bachelor-level Music Theory, Songwriting, and Music Education classes. She received her M.M. in Composition from California State University, Long Beach and her B.A. in Composition from Loyola Marymount University.

amygordonmusic.com

All Recordings Used by Permission of the Composer:

When We're Gone 10,000 Years
C3LA: Contemporary Choral Collective of Los Angeles

In Times of Hibernation
SACRA/PROFANA

Light Up
Graham Middle School Choir

Jocelyn Hagen joins us for episode 13 of the Composer Happy Hour. Jocelyn is a prolific composer with many fabulous works, but what I think I admire most about her are her passion and enthusiasm for poetry, and her strong interest in collaboration. Her collaborations with hip-hop artist Dessa and electronic musician Spearfisher bring unexpected voices to choral music, and she performs together with her husband (choral composer Tim Takach) as Nation, an a cappella duo that often performs "pop" music. Her love of poetry is readily apparent just by seeing the poets she has illuminated in her choral music, but hearing her talk about the poems (or even read them aloud) reveals sincere admiration for the work of these other artists. On this episode, we discuss poetry, pop music, and whether or not Frasier is suitable binging material.

Jocelyn Hagen composes music that has been described as “simply magical” (Fanfare Magazine) and “dramatic and deeply moving” (Star Tribune, Minneapolis/St. Paul). She is a pioneer in the field of composition, pushing the expectations of musicians and audiences with large-scale multimedia works, electro-acoustic music, dance, opera, and publishing. Her first forays into composition were via songwriting, still very evident in her work. The majority of her compositions are for the voice: solo, chamber and choral. Her melodic music is rhythmically driven and texturally complex, rich in color and deeply heartfelt.

In 2019 and 2020, choirs and orchestras across the country premiered her multimedia symphony The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci that includes video projections created by a team of visual artists, highlighting da Vinci’s spectacular drawings, inventions, and texts. Hagen describes her process of composing for choir, orchestra and film simultaneously in a Tedx Talk given at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, now available on YouTube. Her dance opera collaboration with choreographer Penelope Freeh,Test Pilot, received the 2017 American Prize in the musical theater/opera division as well as a Sage Award for “Outstanding Design.” The panel declared the work “a tour de force of originality.”

In 2013 Hagen released an EP entitled MASHUP, in which she performs Debussy’s “Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum” while singing Ed Sheeran’s “The A Team.” She is also one half of the band Nation, an a cappella duo with composer/performer Timothy C. Takach, and together they perform and serve as clinicians for choirs from all over the world.

Hagen’s commissions include Conspirare, the Minnesota Opera, the Minnesota Orchestra, the International Federation of Choral Music, the American Choral Directors Association of Minnesota, Georgia, Connecticut and Texas, the North Dakota Music Teachers Association, Cantus, the Boston Brass, the Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra and the St. Olaf Band, among many others. Her work is independently published through JH Music, as well as through Graphite Publishing, G. Schirmer, ECS Publishing, Fred Bock Music Publishing, Santa Barbara Music Publishing, and Boosey and Hawkes.

www.jocelynhagen.com

All Recordings Used by Permission of the Composer:

"I Started Out Singing"
University of Toledo Rocket Choristers

"Look Out Above"
Macalester College

"Load Poems Like Guns"
Conspirare

Thank you for coming back for another episode of the Composer Happy Hour. My guest for episode 11 is Matthew Lyon Hazzard. Matt and I had previously only met in passing - he remembers this a bit more clearly than I do - but it was at a bar in Kansas City where I was sitting at a table of other choral conductors enthusiastically discussing the merits of a solo we had just heard in a performance. Needless to say, I am happy to finally have a proper conversation with him. Matt is a writing some really wonderful stuff - rhythmically vibrant, and filled with lush soundscapes. He is also, I have a discovered, a very kind and genuine guy. Our conversation covers craft cocktails, driving through the dessert, and books about sword-fighting rodents (seriously).

Matthew Lyon Hazzard is an award-winning Filipino-American composer, conductor, singer, and educator. Praised for his “exquisite text-setting” and for creating “stunning landscapes of sound,” Hazzard’s music has garnered numerous accolades. He was named the winner of the 2017 American Choral Directors Association Raymond W. Brock Student Composition Competition, a prize winner of the International Choral Composition Competition Japan 2016, and the inaugural winner of True Concord’s Stephen Paulus Emerging Composers Competition. His music is increasingly performed by collegiate and professional ensembles around the world, including the Metropolitan Chorus of Tokyo, KC VITAs, the Vancouver Chamber Choir, the Bob Cole Chamber Choir, and others.

Hazzard earned his M.M. in Choral Conducting with honors from the Bob Cole Conservatory at California State University Long Beach, and his M.A.T. and B.M. in Music Composition from East Carolina University. Before pursuing his graduate studies, Hazzard taught at Greene Central High School (NC) for four years. His choirs received numerous awards, consistent superior ratings, and were invited to perform on the stage of Carnegie Hall under his leadership. He is now pursuing his D.M.A. Choral Conducting at the University of Houston Moores School of Music, where he continues to write for voices.

All Recordings Used By Permission of the Composer:

"There is No Sea" (2018)
i. The Prow
ii. The Ocean Between Us
iii. So Much To Seek
CSULB Bob Cole Conservatory Chamber Choir

"Flight" (2020
Portland State Chamber Choir

This episode is sponsored by Four Fires Meadery

I am so excited to welcome my friend Eric Barnum as our guest for Episode 10 of the Composer Happy Hour. Eric and I have known each other for a bit, having initially been connected through the University of Washington, where we each studied at different times. I have come to admire Eric greatly as a composer, as a thinker, and as a person. We have spent our fair share of time chatting and debating late into the evening during ACDA conference weekends, and this alone would be reason enough for me to want him on the show. It also helps that I really love the music he writes. If somehow you don't know his music - listen, listen, listen - and I know you will love it too. On today's show, we discuss Starbucks, Minnesota winters, and whether or not Mozart is actually any good.

A conductor and composer, Eric William Barnum continues to passionately seek new ground in the choral field.  Working with choirs of all kinds, his collaborative leitmotif endeavors to provide intensely meaningful experiences for singers and audiences.

Barnum is currently the Director of Choral Activities at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa and previously, the Director of Choral Activities at the University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh.  He holds a DMA in Choral Conducting from the University of Washington (Seattle, WA), under the direction of Dr. Geoffrey Boers.  He has an advanced degree in conducting from Minnesota State University (Mankato, MN), primary study with Dr. David Dickau, as well as BAs in Composition and Vocal Performance from Bemidji State University (Bemidji, MN).  He has appeared as a conductor across the United States and the International stage, and has worked with some of the most innovative minds in the choral field.

His compositional voice and vision continue to gain popularity around the globe with performances from choirs Internationally.  He composes for choral ensembles of all types, from professional to youth choirs, and has received numerous awards and prestigious grants such as a Bush Foundation Artist Fellowship and a McKnight Foundation Grant.  He has also held residencies with such ensembles as Choral Arts (Seattle, WA), Cantus (Trondheim, Norway), The Rose Ensemble (St. Paul, MN), Kantorei (Denver, CO), Magnum Chorum (Minneapolis, MN), Coro Vocal Artists (Tucson, AZ), as well as with many high schools and collegiate choirs.

www.ericwilliambarnum.com

All Recordings Used By Permission of the Composer:

"Sing in Dark Times"
University of Washington Chamber Singers

"Launching Into Space"
University of Toledo Chamber Singers

This episode is sponsored by Four Fires Meadery.

Welcome to the Composer Happy Hour episode nine. Thank you so much for listening. If you haven't already, consider giving us a follow on Instagram. We'd love to have you as a part of our online community.

Our guest for this episode is Saunder Choi. Saunder is based in Los Angeles, and he writes beautiful, challenging, and timely music. He also knows how to make a mean cocktail. I was very much looking forward to this conversation as Saunder and I had only previously chatted via email. He is a very kind and gracious guest, and I am sure that - if you haven't already - you are going to fall in love with his music. In today's episode we discuss taco trucks, growing up in the Philippines, and getting a flat tire in the desert.

As always, if you like what you hear - buy us a beer! Your contributions will help to fund future projects by whateverandeveramen.

Saunder Choi is a Los Angeles-based Filipino composer and choral artist. His works have also been performed by the Philippine Madrigal Singers, the Crossing Choir, the LA Master Chorale Chamber Singers, Sacra Profana, Tonality, Indianapolis Symphonic Choir, World Youth Choir, Asia Pacific Youth Choir and many others. He has been commissioned by the L.A. Choral Lab, Andrea Veneracion International Choral Festival, SYC Ensemble Singers (Singapore), Choral Arts Initiative, the Earth Choir (Taiwan), Taipei Philharmonic Choir and Women’s Choir, Archipelago Singers (Indonesia), Los Angeles Master Chorale, and many others. As an arranger and orchestrator, Saunder has written for Tony-Award winner Lea Salonga, Singapore Symphony Orchestra, Orquestra Filarmónica Portuguesa, ABS-CBN Philharmonic Orchestra, Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra, the New York Gay Men’s Chorus, Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles, the Tim Janis Christmas Shows at Carnegie Hall, Ballet Philippines, etc.

He won the 2017 Indianapolis Symphonic Choir Carol Commission competition and awarded the 1st prize in the 2014 American Prize for Choral Composition (student division). He was also a finalist for the 2012 and 2015 ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award and was one of the five composition fellows at the 2016 Big Sky Choral Initiative, where he worked with the Grammy-award winning choir, The Crossing. More recently, he was one of three composers chosen to participate in Pacific Chorale’s Choral Sketches Workshop, with renowned composer Tarik O’Regan.

Born in Manila, Philippines, Saunder holds degrees from De La Salle University – Manila, Berklee College of Music, and the USC Thornton School of Music. His works are published with See-A-Dot Music Publishing, Santa Barbara Music Publishingand Earthsongs. Select works are also distributed by MusicSpoke and MuzikSea.

www.saunderchoi.com

All Recordings Used by Permission of the Composer:

"Ang Tren"
UA&P Chorale

"The New Colossus"
LA Choral Lab

"Invitation to Love"
UUSM Voices

"American Breakfast"
C3LA

The Composer Happy Hour is presented by whateverandeveramen. - but who is whateverandeveramen.? And what does it mean? And why do you have a podcast? The answers to all of those questions and more come to you in this bonus episode. We hope you enjoy!

Welcome to the Composer Happy Hour episode eight. Thank you so much for listening. If you haven't already, consider giving us a follow on Instagram. We'd love to have you as a part of our online community.

Our guest for this episode is David V. Montoya. David and I have known each other for some time now, and I am delighted to have him on the show. David was actually instrumental in helping to carve out an early identity for whateverandeveramen. Were fortunate to not only premiere some of his music - but it remains the only official "studio" recording of the group available online. In addition to writing music, he is a very fine high school choir director and this experience has surely influenced his writing as he has a number of pieces that are very well suited for a high school ensemble. More recently he has composed several multi-movement, more extended works that demonstrate his evolution as a composer: "Songs of Fatherhood", "Our True Heritage", and "Magdalene." In our conversation, Dave talks about looking forward to one day having more time to compose - and I can't wait to hear what he produces. In today's episode we discuss musical mentors, books, and the musical stylings of Steely Dan.

As always, if you like what you hear - buy us a beer! Your contributions will help to fund future projects by whateverandeveramen.

David V. Montoya (b. 1968) received a bachelor of arts degree in music education from California State University, Los Angeles (1992), and a master of music degree from the University of Nevada, Reno (1998). He has taught in the Southern California public school system for 29 years, teaching both junior high and senior high school music.

As a composer Montoya's music, including African Processional: "Jambo rafiki yangu," has been performed throughout the world by high schools, colleges, churches, and such prestigious groups as the Choral Arts Initiative, the United States Air Force Singing Sergeants, El Café Chorale (Costa Rica), the Kansas City Chorale, Louisiana State University A Cappella Choir, the Philippine Chamber Singers, and the Grammy Award-winning Phoenix Chorale. His compositions range from a cappella and accompanied choral music (from the silly to the sacred) to works for solo voice, guitar, piano, harp, brass, ukulele, and even harmonica. Montoya has spent his career making music in various churches around Southern California as a conductor, composer, tenor soloist and cantor. As a choral musician, he has performed with such fine organizations as the Los Angeles Master Chorale, the Pacific Chorale, the Singers of the Chapel of Charlemagne (an all-Gregorian Chant choir) and he has sung under the baton of such great conductors as John Alexander, Carl St. Clair, John Mauceri, Bobby McFerrin, Seiji Ozawa, Paul Salamunovich, and Roger Wagner. He was once invited to prepare a group of his high school students to sing with Grammy Award-winning chanteuse, Rickie Lee Jones.

All Recordings Used by Permission of the Composer:
"Three Poems of St. John of the Cross"
Louisiana State University A Cappella

"African Processional"
US Air Force Singing Sergeants

"Songs of Fatherhood" (2014)
whateverandeveramen.

"Peace is Every Step" (2017)
Glass City Singers

"Light of Mary" (2017)
Choral Arts Initiative

Episode Sponsor:
Four Fires Meadery is available for shipping nationwide at 4fmeadery.com

Hi friends! Welcome back to the Composer Happy Hour. If you are reading this, you are likely a fan of the show and/or an avid supporter of whateverandeveramen. Thank you so much for your ongoing support - we really do appreciate it. If you haven't already, please rate and review the podcast here or on your chosen streaming platform (or both!). This is most appreciated.

Our guest this episode is Jennifer Jolley. I had a chance to work with Jenn back in 2016 when she was in a residency with my choirs. I was quickly impressed with her as a composer, but also as a human. She is very kind and supportive of young musicians, and incredibly humble. So humble, in fact, that she has an entire blog dedicated to her own musical rejections. Her choral music often sets texts that address a fairly specific moment in time or experience. This is in stark contrast to the "tradition" of setting pretty poetry by dead white people, that seems to aim for timelessness, but too often ends up not being very good even in the moment. In this episode we discuss baseball, how to give directions in California, and why f*ck is such a great word for choral music.

As always, if you like what you hear - buy us a beer! Your contributions will help to fund future projects by whateverandeveramen.

Jennifer Jolley (b. 1981) is a composer, blogger, and professor person. She is also a cat lover and part-time creative opera producer.
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Jennifer’s work draws toward subjects that are political and even provocative. Her collaboration with librettist Kendall A, Prisoner of Conscience, has been described as “the ideal soundtrack and perhaps balm for our current ‘toxic… times’” by Frank J. Oteri of NewMusicBox. Her piece, Blue Glacier Decoy, written as a musical response to the Olympic National Park, depicts the Pacific Northwest’s melting glaciers. Her partnership with writer Scott Woods, You Are Not Alone, evokes the fallout of the #MeToo Movement.
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Jennifer’s works have been performed by ensembles worldwide. She has received commissions from the National Endowment for the Arts, the MidAmerican Center for Contemporary Music, the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, Quince Ensemble, and many others.

Jennifer deeply values the relationship that is created between composers and the communities with whom they collaborate. She has been composer-in-residence at multiple institutions. She promotes composer advocacy through her opera company NANOWorks Opera and her articles for NewMusicBox & I CARE IF YOU LISTEN. Also, she is on the Executive Council of the Institute for Composer Diversity and the New Music USA Program Council.

Jennifer joined the Texas Tech School of Music composition faculty in 2018 and has been a member of the composition faculty at Interlochen Arts Camp since 2015.

www.jenniferjolley.com

All Recordings Used by Permission of the Composer:

"Prisoner of Conscience" (2015)
Quince Ensemble

"Drei Brücken" (2012)
I. Roebling - Premiere Performance, Commissioned by the Contemporary Arts Center for their 2012 Gala, Drew Klein, Performance Curator
III. Brent Spence - University of Toledo Chamber Singers

"Her Speed Left the Winds Behind" (2020)
Voices of Ascension and Trio Triumphatrix