PARTICIPANTS UNIVERSITAS CANTAT 2019
The Chamber Singers of the University of Wisconsin–Whitewater, USA
Conductor: Dr. Robert Gehrenbeck
The Chamber Singers of the University of Wisconsin–Whitewater, USA
https://www.wisconsinchamberchoir.org/
The Chamber Singers of the University of Wisconsin–Whitewater comprise the most talented vocalists on the UW-W campus, including music majors studying vocal performance, music education, and theory/composition, as well as students majoring in disciplines such as biology, history, business management, and special education. The choir’s repertoire embraces a wide variety of eras and genres, from Renaissance madrigals and motets, masterworks of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and various styles of contemporary music. In recent years the choirs have premiered new works by composers such as Brent Michael Davids, Christian Ellenwood, Wayne Oquin, and Giles Swayne. Additionally, the Chamber Singers have performed at state and regional conventions of the American Choral Directors Association and on regional and international tours, including an upcoming trip to Germany and Poland in May of 2019.
The vocal jazz ensemble of the UW Whitewater consists of 16-20 singers and a small combo. The group focuses on vocal jazz and contemporary a cappella literature with particular emphasis on improvisational techniques. The ensemble has performed several jazz improvisation workshops at regional music conferences.
Dr. Robert Gehrenbeck
The American choral conductor and music pedagogue, Robert Gehrenbeck, obtanied his Bachelor od Arts degree from Macalester College; his Master of Music degree in Conducting from Boston University (1994-1996); and his Doctorate in Choral Conducting from Indiana University School of Music (1997-2007). He had additional studies at the Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy Conservatory in Leipzig, Germany. His doctoral dissertation on contemporary British composer Giles Swayne received the 2007 Julius Herford Prize from the American Choral Directors Association. Since August 2006, Robert Gehrenbeck is Director of Choral Activities at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, where he conducts the UW-W Chamber Singers, Concert Choir, Women’s Chorale, and opera and musical theatre productions. Since January 2008, Robert Gehrenbeck has served as Artistic Director of the Wisconsin Chamber Choir, whose 2010 performance of Bach's St. John Passion was praised as "superbly disciplined, of beautifully balanced sonority" and "a remarkably consistent, coherent, and artistically splendid achievement." Choirs under Gehrenbeck's direction have performed throughout the upper Midwest and in Europe.As a singer, he has appeared with the Robert Shaw Festival Singers, Boston's Cantata Singers, New York State Baroque, Pittsburgh's Bach and the Baroque, and the Bloomington Early Music Festival.
University of Wisconsin–Whitewater, USA
