Jo-Michael Scheibe, conductor, USC Thornton Chamber Singers
Magen Solomon, conductor, USC Thornton Concert Choir

Newly appointed professor and chair of the Thornton choral and sacred music department Jo-Michael Scheibe takes the helm of the Chamber Singers, one of USC’s premier choirs. Together with the Concert Choir, led by Magen Solomon, the ensembles will perform a concert featuring an exceptional repertoire of choral works, including the Chamber Singers’ performance of Benjamin Britten’s Hymn to St. Cecelia.

The Concert Choir performance, “Landscape/Cityscape,” will feature works by Lassus, Haydn, Brahms, Hensel, Mendelssohn, Tchaikovsky, Christopher Marshall and others.

Chamber Singers Repertoire
Britten: Hymn to St. Cecelia
Richard Nance: Batter My Heart, Three-Personed God
Stevens: Like As a Culver on a Bared Bough
Poos: Annerle, wo warst du? (Slovakian Love Songs)
William Hawley: Io Son la Primavera
Nils Lindberg: Shall I compare thee to a Summers Day
Arr by. Philip Wilby: Marianne
Arr. by Craig Hella Johnson: Hard Times
Arr. by Sydney Guillaume: Twa Tanbou

Jo-Michael Scheibe chairs the Thornton School of Music’s Department of Choral and Sacred Music at USC, where he conducts the USC Chamber Singers, teaches choral conducting and choral methods, and supervises the graduate and undergraduate choral program. In 2008, he assumed a new post as National President Elect of the American Choral Directors’ (ACDA) Association. Scheibe previously served as the organization’s Western Division President (1991-1993), as well as National Repertoire and Standards Chairperson for Community Colleges (1980-1989). Ensembles under his leadership have sung at six national ACDA conventions, as well as two national conventions of the Music Educators National Conference, and various regional and state conventions.

Scheibe’s artistic collaborations include choral performances with Luciano Pavarotti, José Carreras, Salvatore Licitra, Maria Guleghina and Kenny Loggins, as well as preparation of choruses for Sir Colin Davis and the London Symphony Orchestra, Franz Welser-Möst and the Cleveland Orchestra, Michael Tilson Thomas and the New World Symphony, and conductors Jahja Ling, Edoardo Müller, James Judd, Max Valdez, Thomas Sanderling and Alain Lombard. Recordings of ensembles under Scheibe’s direction have been released on the Albany, Cane, Naxos, Arsis and ANS labels.
 
A champion of contemporary music, Scheibe regularly commissions and performs new works of choral literature. He has helped to launch the careers of promising young composers and to promote music by international composers largely unknown in the United States. Music publishers Walton, Colla Voce Music and Santa Barbara distribute the Jo-Michael Scheibe Choral Series internationally.

Fall 2008 marks Scheibe’s return to USC after a 15-year tenure as director of Choral Studies at the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music, as well as previous faculty appointments at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff; Long Beach City College; Vintage High School in Napa, Calif.; and the Huntington Beach High School. Scheibe received his D.M.A. from USC and his B.A. and M.M. degrees from California State University at Long Beach, where he was presented with the distinguished alumnus award.

Scheibe has served as music and artistic director of several community choral organizations, including the Master Chorale of South Florida, the Tampa Bay Master Chorale and the Long Beach Master Chorale. He has directed music ministries in churches as well, most recently at Coral Gables Congregational Church, where he conducted the Chancel Choir and Vocal Ensemble, which appeared at the 2002 ACDA Southern Division Convention in Nashville. A member of Chorus America, the International Federation of Choral Music, and several other professional and educational organizations, Scheibe is in frequent demand internationally as a clinician, conductor and adjudicator for choruses at the university, community college, community and secondary levels.

Magen Solomon joined the choral conducting faculty of USC’s Thornton School of Music in 2004 and is in her 13th season as artistic director of the San Francisco Choral Artists. For the past 13 years, she has been music director of the Oakland Symphony Chorus, and she served as interim artistic director of the San Francisco Girls Chorus for the 2000-01 season.

Solomon has prepared choruses for Michael Tilson Thomas, Kent Nagano, Nicolas McGegan, Michael Morgan, Vance George, Scott Parkman and Wes Kenney. Under her leadership, the San Francisco Choral Artists (a chamber choir specializing in 20th century and 21st century music) has premiered more than 80 choral works, performed at the 1998 American Choral Directors Association regional convention, and released two CDs: So Gracious Is the Time (1999) and Music Among Friends (2005).

Solomon has taught and conducted at Smith and Mount Holyoke colleges, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Santa Clara University. A graduate of Oberlin College, she holds master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she studied conducting with Robert Fountain.

Solomon’s edition of Johannes Eccard’s Newe deutzsche Lieder (1578) is published by A-R Editions (Madison, Wisconsin) in their “Recent Researches in Music of the Renaissance” series.