Dr. Timothy Westerhaus

Conductor Timothy Westerhaus is passionate about transforming humankind through choral music that fosters empathy, builds inclusive community, and deepens understanding through diverse programming and collaborations. He seeks to advocate for singing among all ages and to engage choral beauty with contemporary issues relevant to society, justice, and culture in local and global communities.

From 2010 to 2021, Tim made his home in Spokane, Washington, where he served as Director of Choirs and Vocal Studies at Gonzaga University, serving also as Music Department Chair from 2017-2021. He recently served as President of the Northwestern Region of the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA) and as the University & College Curriculum Officer of the Washington Music Educators Association (WMEA). He currently serves as a member of the National Collegiate Choral Organization Board. He founded and conducted the professional-level chamber chorus, Spokane Kantorei, an ensemble of music educators committed to sparking the imagination with fresh interpretations of early music and premieres of new compositions. He now lives in Flagstaff, Arizona, where he serves as Director of Choral Studies at the Northern Arizona University School of Music, and he is Artistic-Director Designate for Master Chorale of Flagstaff.

Tim has conducted collegiate and professional ensembles in the United States, Europe, Colombia, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and South Korea, where he was a Conducting Fellow of the International Conductor Exchange Program. He has led ensembles in performances at regional conferences of ACDA and the National Association for Music Education and at WMEA state conferences. As a tenor, he professionally sings in the Oregon Bach Festival Chorus and has sung there under Helmuth Rilling, Matthew Halls, John Butt, Jeffrey Kahane, and Craig Hella Johnson. He performs as pianist in solo recitals and collaborative concerts and leads Baroque performances from the harpsichord.

Interdisciplinary choral collaborations during the 2020-2021 pandemic included “Mindfulness with Music” in partnership with a Tibetan Buddhist compassion meditation leader; a concert titled “Can you see?”, featuring historical and modern African American composers and presented with poetry and spoken word collaborators; Considering Matthew Shepard, performed with Spokane Spectrum Singers; and performances with bluegrass band, brass quintet, and Argentinian folk ensemble. Virtual residencies and exchanges included the Chitungwiza Harmony Singers (Zimbabwe), Fulbright FLTA teacher Reymund Lara (Philippines), Dr. Zanaida Robles (Tonality, Los Angeles), and Emiliano Linares (Argentina).

Dr. Westerhaus received his master and doctoral degrees in choral conducting from Boston University, where he studied with Ann Howard Jones, and he received his bachelor’s degree in sacred music from the University of Saint Thomas, where he studied with Angela Broeker.

An outdoor enthusiast, Tim enjoys running, cross-country skiing, and backcountry camping, whether in the Washington Cascades or Arizona San Francisco Peaks.

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Reena Esmail, Composer-in-Residence, 2023-24

Indian-American composer Reena Esmail works between the worlds of Indian and Western classical music, and brings communities together through the creation of equitable musical spaces.

Esmail’s life and music was profiled on Season 3 of PBS Great Performances series Now Hear This, as well as Frame of Mind, a podcast from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Esmail divides her attention evenly between orchestral, chamber and choral work. She has written commissions for ensembles including the Los Angeles Master Chorale, Seattle Symphony, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and Kronos Quartet, and her music has featured on multiple Grammy-nominated albums, including The Singing Guitar by Conspirare, BRUITS by Imani Winds, and Healing Modes by Brooklyn Rider. Many of her choral works are published by Oxford University Press.

Esmail is the Los Angeles Master Chorale’s 2020-2025 Swan Family Artist in Residence, and was Seattle Symphony’s 2020-21 Composer-in-Residence. She also holds awards/fellowships from United States Artists, the S&R Foundation, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Kennedy Center.

Esmail holds degrees in composition from The Juilliard School (BM’05) and the Yale School of Music (MM’11, MMA’14, DMA’18). Her primary teachers have included Susan Botti, Aaron Jay Kernis, Christopher Theofanidis, Christopher Rouse and Samuel Adler. She received a Fulbright-Nehru grant to study Hindustani music in India. Her Hindustani music teachers include Srimati Lakshmi Shankar and Gaurav Mazumdar, and she currently studies and collaborates with Saili Oak. Her doctoral thesis, entitled Finding Common Ground: Uniting Practices in Hindustani and Western Art Musicians explores the methods and challenges of the collaborative process between Hindustani musicians and Western composers.

Esmail was Composer-in-Residence for Street Symphony (2016-18) and is currently an Artistic Director of Shastra, a non-profit organization that promotes cross-cultural music connecting music traditions of India and the West.

She currently resides in her hometown of Los Angeles, California.

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Philip Tschopp, Managing Director

Philip Tschopp is known as a champion of new music, collaborator with Northwest composers, and leader of regional instrumental and choral ensembles. As Music Director for the City Opera Ballet, Mr. Tschopp conducted City Opera’s acclaimed Marriage of Figaro (2015) and Cosi Fan Tutte (2016), bringing professional opera back to Bellevue. With Ballet Bellevue/Orchestra Bellevue, he has led productions of Fairy Queen – Purcell (2003), Sleeping Beauty – Tchaikovsky (2006), Nutcracker – Tchaikovsky (2006, 2014), Coppelia – Delibes (2007), Giselle – Adam (2014), Firebird – Stravinsky (2014, 2017), OPERA + BALLET (2015, 2016), Messiah – The Ballet (2015), Romeo and Juliet (World Premiere) – Jon Steinmeier (choreography by Amber Willet) and The Snowman – Blake (original choreography by Jennifer Porter). Regionally, Philip served as conductor/music director for Bellevue’s Cascadian Chorale (1994 – 2007) where he premiered over 30 new works commissioned from composers Bern Herbolsheimer, Troy Peters, David White, and William Hawley. Under Mr. Tschopp’s direction, the Cascadian Chorale and Chamber Orchestra presented numerous choral/orchestral masterworks including Requiem settings by Brahms, Mozart, Fauré, and Duruflé, as well as more diverse fare such as Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610, Poulenc’s Gloria, Arvo Pärt’s Te Deum, and Berlioz’s Te Deum. Mr. Tschopp has been an active guest artist with notable Northwest regional ensembles including the Fisher Ensemble, the Affinity Composer’s Collective, soundX, and the Chelan Bach Festival. In November 2015, Mr. Tschopp was conductor and baritone soloist for The Withing Project, Hope Wechkin’s acclaimed Theatrical Oratorio based on the science of human connection. In addition to his work with Choral Arts Northwest, Mr. Tschopp has served as Managing Director for Pacific MusicWorks, Music Director of St. Clement Episcopal Church of Rome, and is Music Director for Puget Brass, one of the premier English brass bands in the Northwest.

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Hyo-Won Woo, Composer-in-Residence, 2022-23

One of Korea’s most prominent composers, Hyo-won Woo, has emerged as a formidable voice in choral society. Eloquent blends of traditional Korean musical elements and Western musical techniques and a unique way of using language-nuance characterize her groundbreaking works. She often uses Latin text besides Korean or English languages, sublimating the meaning of words into an artistic universe with playful spatial music.

Ms. Woo has been composer-in-residence with the Seoul Ladies’ Singers since 1996 and with the Incheon City Chorale, led by the world-renowned Hak-won Yoon, from 1999-2014. For over twenty years, the collaboration between Ms. Woo and Mr. Yoon has forged a new path for choral music in Korea.

Ms. Woo’s works are highly sought after worldwide and have been critically acclaimed at the 2009 ACDA National Conference, Polyfolia in France, and the IFCM choral symposium. Ms. Woo previously taught at the Seoul Theological Seminary and Hansei University and was a visiting fellow at the University of Michigan. She is currently faculty at the Chorus Center Academy in Seoul.

As a prolific composer, she produced a significant output, ranging from hymn & spiritual arrangements, solo songs, cantatas, requiem, polyphonic motets, and chamber music to monumental choral symphonic works that were commissioned by the Korean Ministry of Culture and premiered by the Korean National Chorus. Some of her works are published by Walton Inc. in the United States and the Seoul Chorus Center in South Korea. A large number of her works are in the process of being published in the States.

With her artistic partner, Dr. MeeAe Nam, Woo has recently co-founded the Ari project to birth a new choral performance platform introducing the history, spirit, and culture of South Korea. Woo is currently undertaking a groundbreaking new chorus genre, “Choral Drama,” under the Ari project, which will be world premiered in the States in 2023.

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Miriam Anderson, Choir Manager

Miriam Anderson has been involved in music her whole life and started studying voice and percussion at the age of 10. She began her studies in both choral and orchestral conducting during her undergraduate years at UC Berkeley. After earning a bachelor’s degree in music and peace and conflict studies, she was hired to assistant direct the UC Berkeley Chamber Chorus, and to play principal timpani and run the percussion section for the UC Berkeley Symphony Orchestra. In June 2017 she completed a Master of Music degree in choral conducting from the University of Washington.

Miriam is passionate about using choral music to build community and connection, and as a form of outreach, integrating her backgrounds in music and peace studies. Outside of acting as the chorus manager and a singing member of Choral Arts Northwest, Miriam directs Puget Soundworks, the Seattle Labor Chorus, and the Piccolini and Entrata ensembles of Seattle Girls Choir. She also teaches choir at Seattle Waldorf High School and is a teaching artist at Seattle Opera. Miriam also frequently gigs in the Seattle area as a percussionist, vocalist, and conductor.

When she is not making music, Miriam enjoys dance, yoga, knitting, cooking, and playing with her cat.

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Robert Bode, Artistic Director Emeritus

Upon retiring from the Conservatory of the University of Missouri-Kansas City at the end of the 2018=19 academic year, Artistic Director Robert Bode was invited to join the music faculty at the Ohio State University, where he is a Visiting Professor of Choral Music and Associate Director of Choral Studies. He and his husband Lee Thompson now reside in Columbus, Ohio.

Robert Bode’s depth of knowledge, artistic imagination, and passionate music-making have brought him critical praise from around the world. He has been a featured performer at regional and national conventions of the American Choral Directors Association and Chorus America. He has been invited to conduct concerts in Russia, China, Mongolia, England, the Czech Republic, German, Romania, Poland, and Bulgaria.

In 2007 two powerful forces in choral music came together when Bode was named Artistic Director of Choral Arts Northwest. Under his direction, CANW has been awarded coveted performing slots at national conferences, and has won the prestigious Margaret Hillis Award for Choral Excellence by Chorus America in 2010. Bode and CANW have also won national praise from The American Prize for recordings Mornings Like This (2010 Best Choral Performance) and Shall We Gather at the River: The Choral Music of William Hawley (2013 Second Place, Choral Performance). In December of 2015, Bode and CANW were invited to sing for President and Mrs. Obama at the White House.

Choral Arts Northwest commissioned over twenty choral compositions during Bode’s tenure, including two full-evening choral oratorios by Seattle composer John Muehleisen: Pietá (2012) and Who Shall Return Us Our Children: A Kipling Passion (2017), which was featured in a performance in March of 2018 at the Northwest Division Conference of the American Choral Directors Association in Portland, Oregon. A live-performance recording of The Kipling Passion is the latest CD to be produced by CANW, and is available on the Gothic label.

 

 

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Richard Sparks, Founding Artistic Director

Richard Sparks has had a varied career in both academic and professional realms.

He founded and conducted Seattle Pro Musica from 1973-1980, during which time he conducted over 70 different programs, ranging from all the major works of Bach and over 40 of his cantatas; choral/orchestral masterworks by Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and many others; the Northwest premiere of the Monteverdi 1610 Vespers with period instruments; and a cappella repertoire from renaissance through the 20th century.

He conducted the Seattle Symphony Chorale from 1990-94, including preparing them for nine recordings on the Delos label (now most available on Naxos), including the Grammy-nominated recording of Howard Hanson's Lament for Beowulf. He also founded and conducted Choral Arts Northwest from 1993-2006, concentrating particularly on a cappella music, but also including works such as the Pärt Passio. During this time Choral Arts recorded three CDs on the Loft/Gothic label.

Sparks was Artistic Director for 12 years of one of Canada’s noted professional choirs, Pro Coro Canada. Repertoire included significant commissions and a wide variety of other repertoire, including the Bach St. John Passion and Mass in B Minor, Mozart Requiem, all six of the late Haydn Masses, plus tours to Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal.

He has also been a regular guest conductor, notably being the first North American since Norman Luboff to work with the Swedish Radio Choir in 2002, 2007, and 2008. This included preparing them for a DVD recording on the BIS label of the Brahms Ein Deutsches Requiem with the Rotterdam Philharmonic, Valery Gergiev conducting.

Academically, he taught at Mount Holyoke College from 1980-83, and Pacific Lutheran University from 1983-2001. At PLU he led the Choir of the West on numerous tours, including Japan, China, England, and Scandinavia, also making 8 CD recordings. Major works conducted included Verdi’s Requiem and Britten’s War Requiem. He taught at the University of North Texas from 2009-2019, where he conducted the Collegium Singers, who performed with their period-instrument orchestra. They made four trips to the Boston Early Music Festival and sang at the Portland conference of the National Collegiate Choral Organization. The Collegium Singers have many live performances on YouTube, including the 1725 version of Bach’s Johannespassion, Monteverdi’s 1610 Vespers, and the Vivaldi Gloria, which so far has4.6 million views. He was also Chair of the Division of Ensembles and Conducting at UNT.

Currently, he is conductor of the Benedict XVI Institute, which released a CD on the Cappella Records label last year of Frank La Rocca’s Mass of the Americas. Their second CD will be issued this fall, including La Rocca’s Requiem for the Forgotten and Messe des Malades.

 

 

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