Program Notes for Sacred Works by New England Composers
November 19, 2005
About John Cavallaro
John Cavallaro was born in 1963 in Methuen, Massachusetts, and began his music education with piano lessons at age eight. From ages 12 through 19, John pursued hardly any musical interests at all. Then, in his junior year at Brown University, a friend brought him to sing in her church choir, an experience that reawakened John’s musical interest. John joined the Tanglewood Festival Chorus (TFC) in 1985; soon after, self-taught, he began composing small pieces for piano and vocal ensembles. John sang with the TFC until 2000, during which time he continued to produce compositions at a low level, and without any performances.
John arrived at Stanford University in 2000 for graduate study in management science, and he joined the Memorial Church Choir at Stanford, under the direction of Gregory Wait. Having found a willing venue for his musical output, John began refining his works, and the choir began singing them at the University Public Worship services. In response to the overwhelmingly positive feedback received on the performances of his pieces, and in parallel with his graduate studies in management, John began private study in composition with Giancarlo Aquilanti of the music theory faculty at Stanford, and his output increased markedly. John now has completed a large number of works for SATB and other choral ensembles, as well as works for piano, harp, strings, and organ. In 2003, John received a commission to write an anthem to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the founding of Stanford Memorial Church; other commissions followed, including an anthem in Spanish, Como el Padre. He also has nearly completed his most ambitious project to date, Black Mountain: An American Requiem, a larger work for full orchestra and chorus, dedicated to the victims of 9/11.
About Matthew Hall
Matthew Hall is a freshman at Harvard University studying math, linguistics, and music composition. In addition, he has studied composition with New World Chorale co-director John Zielinski. Matthew’s Suite for Piano was granted an Award of Merit in Composition by the National Foundation for the Advancement of the Arts in 2004. He is a pianist and organist and is director of music at St. John the Evangelist Parish in Attleboro, MA.
Matthew is a graduate of Bishop Feehan High School in Attleboro, MA, where he was the Class of 2005 Valedictorian. Besides piano and organ, Matthew also plays flute, tympani, euphonium, mellophone, and horn. At Bishop Feehan, he was percussion captain for the Division 2 Championship Shamrock Marching Band as well as captain of the math team, a league champion on the debate team, vice president of the National Honor Society, and president of the French Honor Society.
Other awards and honors that Matthew has received include: National Council of Teachers of English Achievement in Writing; Outstanding High School Senior in French award from the American Association of Teachers of French; a first-place finish at the Massachusetts State Science Fair; the Pope St. Pius X Youth Award; the Southeast Massachusetts Conference Math League All Star Award; a University of Rochester Humanitarian & Social Science Award; the South Coast Information Technology Exposition Academic Excellence Award; and a first place in the International Science and Engineering Fair in Phoenix, Arizona.
About Randall Thompson
Randall Thompson was born in New York on April 21, 1899 and died in Boston on July 9, 1984. He attended Harvard University, became assistant professor of music and choir director at Wellesley College, and received a doctorate in music from the University of Rochester School of Music. He went on to teach at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and at Harvard. He is particularly noted for his choral works.
The Peaceable Kingdom was inspired by Edward Hicks’s painting, which depicts verses from chapter 11 of the Book of Isaiah. Alleluia probably is Thompson’s most popular and recognizable choral work. It was commissioned by Serge Koussevitzky for the opening of the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood, the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra in Lenox, Massachusetts.
[Photograph from www.classical-composers.org.]