OGCMA Presents 'Music Of The Spirit' Choral Works By Gwyneth Walker And John Rutter

Each summer, the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association (OGCMA) presents its annual Sacred Masterwork concert and this year is no exception. Rich in spiritual trills and sacred thrills, Music of the Spirit, the 2018 free concert features GWYNETH WALKER's Songs of Faith - which was commissioned by OGCMA and hasn't been performed here since its 2013 debut - and JOHN RUTTER's splendid Gloria. Jason C. Tramm will conduct The Great Auditorium Choir and guest soloists Monica Ziglar, Katherine Pracht, Ronald Naldi and Justin Beck, accompanied by the MidAtlantic Brass Ensemble and organist Gordon Turk. The Great Auditorium is located at 54 Pilgrim Pathway in Ocean Grove, New Jersey, and is handicapped-accessible. For more information, visit www.oceangrove.org or call 732-775-0035.

The music of American composer Gwyneth Walker is beloved by performers is beloved by performers and audiences alike for its energy, beauty, reverence, drama, and humor. Dr. Walker's Songs of Faith - commissioned by OGCMA - is a set of six movements of sacred celebration and reverence, based on familiar hymns (childhood favorites of the composer), original music and biblical texts. Its intent is to celebrate a lifelong of faith through music and is scored for chorus, solo voices, brass, percussion and organ, all used in a variety of combinations to create both triumphant and intimate expression. The outer movements (#1 and #6) have a common focus on the rock-like strength of faith: #1 We Stand on a Rock ("Who trusts in God's abiding love builds on a rock that shall not move"); and #6 Where Moses Stood ("If I could I surely would stand on the rock where Moses stood."). The choral lines are direct and simple. The instrumental writing is forceful, full, and even raucous! #2, Glorious Things, is similarly celebratory, but more florid. The word "glory" is repeated in cascading patterns (reflective of light streaming down from heaven). The inner movements are the most introspective. #3, The Gift of Love, scored for vocal quartet and organ, is based on 1 Corinthians 13:1. "If I have not love, I am nothing." These words are expressed through solo singing. The music ends very quietly, as the surrender of one's will, to allow for the flow of love. #4, Were You There? for trumpet and organ, is an arrangement of the familiar spiritual, a sorrowful interpretation with falling intervals (representing tears). Abide With Me adapts the well-known hymn text by substituting the phrase "Be with me" for the original "Abide with me," The latter saved for the ending. A middle verse rises in range and dynamics with the words "Raise high your cross before my closing eyes. Shine through the gloom, and point me to the skies." After this ecstatic section, the music descends prayerfully with repetition of the words "Come live in me, O Lord." The song ends a cappella.

Dr. Gwyneth Walker is a graduate of Brown University and Hartford's Hartt School of Music. She holds B.A., M.M. and D.M.A. degrees in Music Composition. A former faculty member of the Oberlin College Conservatory, she resigned from academic employment in 1982 in order to pursue a full-time career as a composer. Walker's catalog, much-performed by others worldwide, includes over 300 commissioned works for orchestra, chamber ensembles, chorus, and solo voice. Her special interest has been dramatic works that combine music with readings, acting, and movement.

John Rutter's Gloria is a musical setting of parts of the Latin Gloria. He composed it in 1974 on a commission from Mel Olson, and conducted the premiere in Omaha, Nebraska. He structured the text in three movements and scored it for choir, brass, percussion and organ, with an alternative version for choir and orchestra. It was published in 1976 by Oxford University Press and has been recorded several times, including a first recording conducted by the composer, and has enjoyed success over the years. It has been performed by both professionals and lay ensembles. Although setting a liturgical text, it was conceived as a concert piece. Described as "exalted, devotional and jubilant," it is often part of Christmas concerts. "Much of the credit must go to Mel Olson," says the composer, "because, in telling me what he was looking for in a new choral work, he was telling me what thousands of other choral directors were looking for too."

Born in London, John Rutter was educated at Highgate School where fellow pupils included John Tavener, Howard Shelley, Brian Chapple and Nicholas Snowman. As a chorister there, he took part in the first recording of Britten's War Requiem under the composer's baton (1963). He then read music at Clare College, Cambridge, where he was a member of the choir. While still an undergraduate, he had his first compositions published, including the Shepherd's Pipe Carol which he wrote at age 18. He served as Director of Music at Clare College (1975-79) and led the choir to international prominence. In 1981 he founded his own choir, the Cambridge Singers that he conducts and with which he has made many recordings of a sacred choral repertoire (including his own works), particularly on his own label Collegium Records. Rutter also works as an arranger and editor. As a young man he collaborated with Sir David Willcocks on five volumes of the extraordinarily successful Carols for Choirs anthology series. He is a National Patron of Delta Omicron (an international professional music fraternity), as well as Vice President of the Joyful Company of Singers, and President of the Bach Choir.

Monica Rose Ziglar (soprano) studied music with Soprano/Professor Elizabeth Mosher at the University of Arizona and was known throughout the region for her opera and festival performances. In 1993 she went east to study at the Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia, PA. In 2009, she made her Carnegie Hall debut singing Mendelssohn's Elijah. Indeed, from recitals to the opera stage, Mrs. Ziglar is known for "possessing a gift of transcending angelic high notes" (Tucson Citizen Press). In addition to performing lead roles in major opera productions worldwide, she has been the soprano soloist and choral section leader for the past 20 years with OGCMA. She is also in her 23rd season as soloist with St. Mary's Episcopal Church, Wayne, PA.

Katherine Pracht (mezzo-soprano) made her Kennedy Center debut as soloist in Philip Glass' Symphony No. 5 in 2016-17 with the Washington Chorus. She also sang the U.S. premiere of Richard Wernick's ...And a Time for Peace with Leon Botstein and the American Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, and, created several roles in workshops of new operas, among them Susan Kander's The News From Poems, Eric Sawyer's The Scarlet Professor, and Julian Wachner's & and Cerise Jacobs' Rev 23. Ms. Pracht also sang in a workshop of the Opera Philadelphia's world premiere of We Shall Not Be Moved by Daniel Bernard Roumain, and performed in Bernstein's Arias and Barcarolles with Bright Sheng and Michael Barrett for the 2017 Intimacy of Creativity Festival in Hong Kong.

Ronald Naldi (lyric tenor) is an internationally acclaimed lyric tenor who has performed with The Metropolitan Opera, Verona Opera, Opera da Camera of Rome, L'Opera Francais, New Jersey State Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, and the Salzburger Landestheater. With St. Luke's Chamber Ensemble he has sung over 200 performances of Haydn, Mozart, Offenbach, Rieti, Bakst, Fioravanti, and Rossini. He has performed with over 25 symphony orchestras and has an extensive repertoire of more than 30 oratorios. Mr. Naldi has worked under the baton of the world's most famous maestri and has been a colleague with such artists as Placido Domingo and Luciano Pavarotti. For 42 years, he has been the tenor soloist and Artist-in-Residence at OGCMA.

Justin Beck (bass-baritone) has traveled a varied career path, both as an opera and concert soloist, as well as a choral singer and voice-over artist. He has had multiple performances at Carnegie Hall under the baton of notable conductors, including Robert Spano, with the Carnegie Hall Festival Chorus; Leon Botstein with the Bard Music Festival Chorus; and Steven Reineke with the New York Pops. He has also performed as a soloist with the Gregg Smith Singers. Beck performed for three seasons with the Opera Company of Middlebury Vermont, singing in productions of Massenet's Thaïs, Puccini's La Rondine and Bizet's The Pearl Fishers.

Dr. Gordon Turk is OGCMA's Organist-in Residence and Artistic Director of Ocean Grove's Chamber Music Series "Summer Stars." He is in his 45th season on the Jersey Shore. He has performed throughout the U.S., Europe and Asia in concert halls, cathedrals, and universities in both solo performances and with orchestras. Turk is a devoted champion of the pipe organ; a consultant for the building of new pipe organs and the restoration of historic ones; and is a frequent adjudicator of organ competitions. He is currently the Organist and Choirmaster at St. Mary's Episcopal Church in Wayne, PA and Professor of Organ at Rowan University in New Jersey.

Dr. Jason C. Tramm is also in his 45th season as Director of Music Ministries at OGCMA and is recognized as one of today's most dynamic conductors. Dr. Tramm serves as the Director of Choral Activities at Seton Hall University, where he directs two choirs, conducts the University Orchestra, and teaches classes in conducting and music education. He also serves as Artistic Director of the MidAtlantic Opera Company, with which he made his Carnegie Hall.

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