Announcements

2008 NATS Nashville
The most economical way to attend this year's conference is to meet the early registration deadline of April 1, 2008. You can find all the information you need regarding the 50th NATS National Conference, June 27-July 1, 2008 in Nashville, TN on the website at www.nats.org. From this site you can register for the conference and make hotel reservations at the Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center. Everyone is encouraged to register and make room reservations as soon as possible.
In NATS tradition, master classes will be presented by major performing artists. This year's conference features sessions by Dawn Upshaw, who will also present the Artist Recital at the wonderful Ryman Auditorium (original home of the Grand ole Opry), and Sherrill Milnes, who is the keynote speaker for our gala opening ceremony.
Two sessions called Stepping on Stage are scheduled, featuring prominent figures from the opera and commercial music professional communities. Applications for people wishing to participate in these classes are now being accepted through the conference registration website. NATS members may nominate their students or themselves for consideration. Singers selected to participate will be notified well in advance of the conference. Specific requirements for voice type and repertoire apply to some events. If you have further questions, please contact the conference program chair, Scott McCoy, by email at mccoy@voiceinsideview.com.
Your Students Can Attend the 2008 National Conference FREE! Students of NATS members can receive conference registration by serving as a conference volunteer. Volunteering is easy. Have your students email SNATS Coordinator Carl Swanson at nenats@aol.com for all the details!

Baldwin-Wallace Bach Festival
The 76th annual Bach Festival, featuring professional soloists, Baldwin-Wallace choral groups, and professional and top student instrumentalists will be held on Friday, April 18, Saturday, April 19, and Sunday, April 20 in Cleveland Heights, and Berea, Ohio. The Baldwin-Wallace Bach Festival is not only the oldest collegiate, but also the second-oldest Bach festival in the nation. Baldwin-Wallace performing groups are joined by several faculty members and local professional musicians in the three-day, five-event program. Soloists are internationally known artists; the lecturers, distinguished Bach and Baroque scholars. Our students consider the unusual opportunity of participating as colleagues with world-class professionals a high point in their performing experience. Major Work: St. Matthew Passion, BWV 244. Check the website at www.bw.edu/bachfest for specific concert information. Ticket prices are $30/$25/$20 per concert. Subscription tickets for all five concerts are $125/$100/$75. For tickets call (440) 826-2207. Tickets can be ordered at Baldwin-Wallace Box Office at 440.826.2207. Email: bachfest@bw.edu

Blue Mountain Festival
Applications are now being accepted for outstanding high-school, collegiate and pre-professional musicians for the 2008 season of Blue Mountain Festival, July 27 - Aug. 9, 2008. The festival has a dual mission: to pursue excellence in music-making and to educate and train a new generation of classical music lovers and concert-goers. There is room at the festival for a wide range of dedicated students coming to learn and love music. The faculty and student performances constitute one of the most important and creative aspects of the program. All recitals are open to the general public. Faculty Recitals Saturday August 2nd at 7pm and Saturday August 9th at 7pm. Student Recitals Friday August 8th at 7pm. All applications must be received by May 15. Tuition: $1700. Application fee: $50. For an application visit www.bluemountainfestival.org/ Blue Mountain Festival PO Box 2373 Boothwyn, PA 19061 Phone: 484-832-4660 Email Artistic Director - Luba Sindler at sinml@optonline.net

Organ History & Design Course
The course covers the history of the pipe organ from its roots through the most recent instruments being built in the USA and abroad plus considerations in designing a pipe organ, guiding an organ renovation, or new organ project. A-V materials offer opportunities to see and hear pipe organs of the various periods and schools of organ building . Instructor Peggy Kelley Reinburg, church musician and educator, is also an active and acclaimed recitalist, having performed throughout the USA, Europe, and Australia. Her research into organ building, history, and design has placed her among the foremost specialists on the music and organs of Northern Germany, and her book on Arp Schnitger continues to be used in colleges and universities. She is founder and Artistic Director of Ensemble Baroque, Artistic Director of The Organ Swell series in the Virginia Arts Festival, and a member of the VWC Center for Sacred Music faculty. Tuesdays: 4:30-6:30pm, January 29 2008 through May 6, 2008. Class location : Fine Arts 9-VWC. Tuition : $375 + book (different tuition rate applies for academic credit) For additional information, or to register, email csm@vwc.edu

Composer Lee Hoiby's Setting of a last letter home on YouTube
Private First Class Jesse Givens, a setting for voice and piano of a last letter home from an American soldier who died in Iraq, performed by baritone Andrew Garland, is viewable on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wqnPjkqu20

US Army Pfc. Jesse Givens died in Iraq in the service of his country on the first of May, 2003, in his 34th year. He wrote this letter to his wife Melissa, his five year-old son Dakota (nicknamed 'Toad') and his unborn child Carson (nicknamed 'Bean'). He asked Melissa not to open the envelope unless he was killed. 'Please, only read it if I don't come home,' he wrote. 'Please put it away and hopefully you will never have to read it.'

The work was originally written for a consortium of male vocal ensembles led by Cantus of Minneapolis, Minnesota. Cantus first performed it in March 2006. An audio file of Cantus's performance can be downloaded at www.cantusonline.org.

Shortly thereafter Hoiby made a version for baritone and piano which had its first performance by Andrew Garland with Mr. Hoiby accompanying at a concert of Hoiby's music presented by the music department of the University of Wisconsin at Madison in honor of the centenary of the birth of Gunnar Johansen, the Danish piano virtuoso who was Hoiby's musical mentor. The entire concert, which took place on September 17, 2006, can be found at www.music.wisc.edu/events/eventcalendar.jsp on the September page. The Youtube video dramatization features Mr. Garland lipsynching the Madison audio.

Baritone Simon Chausse of Montreal performed the song in October in Montpelier, Vermont. The music critic of the Montpelier Argus, Jim Lowe, wrote: "A new American song-one that is likely destined for worldwide importance-was presented just months after it was written . . . and because of the song's timeliness and fine crafting, it proved emotionally devastating. . . . Hoiby's simple, never maudlin, melodic lines were never histrionic, only quietly dramatic. Still, there was an underlying cataclysmic feel that was subtly interwoven into the modest tonal accompaniment."

Further information about Andrew Garland can be found at www.andrewgarland.com Further information about Lee Hoiby can be found at www.schott-music.com/news/komponistennews/show,16353.html -- and - www.leehoiby.com

Virginia Beach Composer Featured on Award-Winning CD
Virginia Beach composer John Winsor's orchestral work, Three Essays, is featured on Volume Two of ERMMedia's Masterworks of the New Era CD series. On November 4th, the CD rerceived the 2006 JPF Best Classical Orchestral Album award.

The CD, which contains only works by living composers, competed against standard classical CDs. It features Robert Ian Winstin conducting the Philharmonia Bulgarica. Just Plain Folks, which presented the award, is an organization of over 40,000 music publishers, record labels, recording studios, producers, and other music professionals and organizations. Other composers represented on the CD are Thomas Read, Nancy Bloomer Deussen, Gustav Hoyer, Frederic Glesser, and John Ernst.

John Winsor has taught music theory and designed bandsman training materials at the Armed Forces School of Music. He has also taught clarinet, music theory, and composition at the Virginia Governor's School for the Arts. He is clarinetist and composer-in-residence of the Hardwick Chamber Ensemble and Chairman of the Board of Directors for the National Association of Composers/USA (NACUSA).

John's composition prizes include 1992 and 1995 Delius Awards, the 1992, 1994, and 2004 VMTA Commissioned Composer awards, and the Modern Music Festival 2000 Film Scoring Competition prize. He has received grants from the American Music Center and Meet the Composer, Inc. as well as ASCAP standard awards. His works are performed throughout the United States and, occasionally, in Europe. He is the author of Breaking the Sound Barrier: An Argument for Mainstream Literary Music (iUniverse Writer's Showcase), which is listed as an iUniverse Editor's Choice and Reader's Choice book and won a Bronze Medal in ForeWord Magazine's 2003 Book of the Year Awards. His music is published by Conners Publications. His Caprice for clarinet solo (John WInsor, clarinet) was released on NACUSA's very first official CD - Greetings from NACUSA.

John received music degrees from Heidelberg College (B.Mus, 1974) and Kent State University (M.A., 1980). He studied clarinet with Robert Harrison, David Harris, and Robert Marcellus of the Cleveland Orchestra and composition with John Rinehart and James Waters. He serves as webmaster for NACUSA, the MusicLink Foundation, and the Virginia Music Teachers Association and works as a computer programmer for Unisys Corporation. He is currently sole proprietor of Benchmark Web Sites and an adjunct clarinet instructor at Tidewater Community College.

The Masterworks of the New Era recording series is available through fine retailers and at almost all on-line retailers, including Amazon.com and CD Baby.