Frank Ferko

Currently living on the West Coast, Frank Ferko previously spent 30 years as a very active musician in Chicago. From 2001 to 2003 Mr. Ferko held the position of Composer-in-Residence with the Dale Warland Singers, long regarded as one of America's finest a cappella choirs, and his works have been performed by other distinguished ensembles such as Nederlands Kamerkoor, VU-Kamerkoor, Oost-Nederlands Kamerkoor (The Netherlands), Jubilate Singers (New Zealand), Commotio, Holst Singers (United Kingdom), Harvard Glee Club,  Cantori New York, Conspirare, Seattle Pro Musica, Opus 7, Vocal Arts Ensemble of Cincinnati, Magnum Chorum, Ars Nova Singers, Lutheran Choir of Chicago, South Bend Chamber Singers,  Bella Voce  (formerly known as His Majestie's Clerkes), American Repertory Singers, and the Elmhurst Symphony Orchestra.

Distinguished solo artists who have performed his works include sopranos Jeanne-Michèle Charbonnet, Nancy Gustafson, Claudia Patacca and Patrice Michaels; tenors Michael Hume and Kurt Hansen; baritones Nathan Gunn, Robert Orth and Jeffrey Ray; duet keyboardists Timothy and Nancy LeRoi Nickel, Marilyn and James Biery, and Colin Andrews and Janette Fishell, as well as organists David Schrader, Patrick Wedd, David Craighead, Larry Palmer, Jonathan Dimock, McNeil Robinson, Leonard Raver and Dana Robinson, Russian harpsichordist Tatiana Zenaishvili, and saxophonist Frederick Hemke.

Mr. Ferko's works have been heard in concert or in radio broadcast in 30 countries on six continents, and his music has been presented at the Sixth World Symposium on Choral Music (2002), Jusqu'aux oreilles (Montreal, 2001-2003, 2005-2006), Festival Oude Muziek (Utrecht, 1998) and at national conventions of the American Guild of Organists, American Choral Directors Association and Chorus America.

Frank Ferko's awards include the 1989-1990 AGO/Holtkamp Award from the American Guild of Organists, awards from Meet the Composer, American Composers Forum, American Music Center, Arts International and ASCAP. Four times since 1996 he received the Individual Artist's Fellowship from the Illinois Arts Council, and in 2003, 2005 and 2006 the Illinois Arts Council awarded him the Governor's International Travel Exchange Grant for presentations of his music in The Netherlands and Ireland. His works are published exclusively by E. C. Schirmer, and many of his works have been recorded for compact disc on the Arsis, Cedille, Gasparo, Raven, Pro Organo, ZigZag, Notegun, New Art and Liturgical Press labels. His Stabat Mater for unaccompanied mixed chorus and soprano solo, which received high audience and critical acclaim in the U.S. and abroad, has been recorded on compact disc for Cedille Records with soprano Nancy Gustafson and His Majestie's Clerkes (former name of Bella Voce), conducted by Anne Heider.

Mr. Ferko has also served as adjudicator in national competitions including Chorus America/ASCAP Awards in Adventurous Programming, the AGO/ECS Choral Composition Competition and Choral Ventures of the Dale Warland Singers.

Since 1991 he has presented his own works in lecture/demonstrations at universities, conservatories and high schools across the country and abroad.

As a scholar of the music of Olivier Messiaen, Mr. Ferko has lectured on Messiaen's organ music and has performed many of Messiaen's works in concert. He has also written articles for The American Organist on avant-garde music in the church and on the organ music of the Swiss composer Marc Briquet.

Mr. Ferko's compositions based on his research on the life, music and writings of Hildegard von Bingen have gained international attention, and during the summer of 1998 Mr. Ferko was invited to perform his Hildegard Organ Cycle at the Holland Festival Oude Muziek in Utrecht (Netherlands), a performance which marked the European premiere of the work. This was followed by the West Coast U.S. premiere of the work at the Cathedral of St. Mary in San Francisco. Other performances of this work have been presented in major cities across the U.S. since 1991. Similarly, Ferko's Hildegard Motets have been performed by professional and college choirs across America, and his articles about the music of Hildegard and her influence on present-day composers have appeared in the British music journal Choir & Organ.

In the past few years Mr. Ferko's profile articles about significant American music ensembles and solo artists of our time have appeared in The Diapason and Choir & Organ.
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Prize–winning organist and composer Thomas Fielding is a doctoral degree student at the Indiana University School of Music where he has studied composition with David Dzubay, Don Freund, and Sven–David Sandström. Among his many recent awards include one of two equal prizes in the Fanfare for Our Fiftieth competition sponsored by the DuPage Symphony Orchestra, Chicago, IL, and one of two equal prizes in the Welcome Christmas! 2003 carol composition competition offered by Phillip Brunelle’s VocalEssence ensemble and the American Composers’ Forum. He also won first prize in the solo songs division of the Emil and Ruth Beyer composition awards sponsored by the National Federation of Music Clubs. 

Additionally, Mr. Fielding has won first prizes from organ performance competitions in New York and California, full-tuition scholarships from Indiana University, and has performed in England, Wales, the Netherlands, and France. Hhis music has been featured on NPR’s Weekend Edition. He is currently the organist/assistant choir director for St. Mark’s Church in Bloomington, IN. In his free time, he enjoys cooking, reading, and being outdoors.
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David Friddle

Some people are born to do a thing. From age four I knew that music would be my life. Toting my Magnus chord organ upand down Razor Drive in Greenville, SC, I gave indulgent neighbors improvised recitals.

Organ lessons began a few years later. I used the back of the pew in front of me to play along with the organist. Yet, it was the hymn singing that moved me most of all. For years I studied organ, then oboe and clarinet. My high school theory teacher was clairvoyant, however; she predicted I would one day conduct.

As it happens, I had a natural affinity for the organ and pursued degrees at Baylor and Juilliard. I decided to forego a career as a recitalist after the realization that (as my high school theory teacher had predicted) I really wanted to focus my energies on conducting.

Church jobs with choirs and community college instruction were enough for a while; I wanted to teach, though, and unsuccessfully sought a suitable position. After the third go-round, I quit this country for Italy, where, in six months, I studied the language and art. And, I ate.

Upon returning, I established my graphic/web design business in Greenville—an ancillary career that has served me well in every position I’ve ever held. Eventually I founded two mens’ choruses (one in Greenville and the second in Asheville, NC) and began to compose in earnest.

Although I had no desire to return to New York, from the blue an old friend and former employer called to offer me an interim position at a Park Avenue church. With its own community chorus (Central City Chorus) and funds for musicians, I was able to expand my repertoire.

Following my two-year term, I worked for a glossy magazine in New York—thinking yet again that I was finished with music. After the September 11 attacks, I, along with tens of thousands of others, lived in a daze. Unemployed, I could think of nothing that I wanted to do, until I realized that only conducting would bring meaning back into my life.

Pieces fell into place; I moved to Miami to complete my second DMA in choral conducting; along the way, Christus happened. Returning to school required a tremendous leap of faith, which is itself a testament to how committed I am to making music in an academic setting. My career has been diverse, non-linear, and decidedly non-traditional. I would not (indeed could not) have had it any other way.

And now at the beginning of 2009 I look to the future for the opportunity for which I have waited. Despite my best efforts, the years have shown again and again that I can’t escape my first love and life-calling: music. It is part of my biology; music is in my cells; I live it and it will go with me to my death. I can imagine no better companion and indeed I want no other.

In the meantime, that’s my story and I’m stickin’ with it.
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