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2024 ACDA Northwestern Region Conference January 24-27, 2024 Spokane, Washington

P er f orming C hoirs
Performing Choirs

Portland Phoenix Chamber Choir University of Washington

Chorale

The internationally award-winning Portland Phoe-
nix Chamber Choir was founded as the Marylhurst
Chamber Choir, the premier choral ensemble at The University of Washington Chorale is an ad-
Marylhurst University in Portland, Oregon. Upon the vanced undergraduate ensemble containing students
sudden closure of Marylhurst, the choir was reborn from all majors across the Seattle campus. Last May,
as Portland Phoenix. The Chamber Choir has twice UW Chorale members premiered Wyers’s composition
performed at OMEA and at Carnegie Hall. This And All Shall Be Well in Carnegie Hall. The chorus has
summer, they will travel to the International Choral collaborated with many prestigious artists including
Kathaumixw in British Columbia. Chamber Choir has Seattle Symphony, Imogen Heap, Andrea Bocelli, and
collaborated with Portland Chamber Orchestra, com- Ann Hamilton, as well as appearing before the Princess
posers Morten Lauridsen and Gwyneth Walker, and of Sweden and the President of Latvia. UW Chorale
renowned vocal ensembles Cappella Romana, Cantus toured to the Baltics for the 2019 Estonian Laulupiduu
and Roomful of Teeth. Their recording of the choral Festival as one of the only invited American choirs.
works and songs of Margaret Bonds will be released by Their third CD Resonant Streams appeared in Gramophone
Centaur Records. magazine, and a fourth was recorded June 2023.

Justin Smith is an assistant professor of Giselle Wyers is the Donald E. Petersen
music and director of choral activities at Endowed Professor of Choral Music at
Queens University of Charlotte, where the University of Washington, as well as
he conducts three choirs and teaches conducting the fifty-voice Concord with-
courses in music history, conducting, and in the Columbia Choirs consortium. As
film music. In demand as a clinician and guest con- a guest conductor, Wyers has led honor choirs and all-
ductor, he has adjudicated festivals in Turkey, Finland, state choirs in fourteen states and in Canada, as well
and Greece as well as numerous events in the United as working with semi-professional ensembles across
States. Smith is also the director of the Portland Phoe- Europe. She serves as an editorial board member for
nix Chamber Choir, appearing at major choral compe- Choral Journal as well as a member of ACDA’s Stand-
titions in Ireland, Italy, Wales, and Latvia, and by invi- ing Committee on International Activities. She has
tation at the NWACDA conference. He holds a DMA composed thirty choral works, often on texts situated
in choral conducting from the University of Houston around her ardent love and pervasive concern for pro-
with additional degrees from Wesleyan University and tecting nature.
the University of Oregon.

14 CHORAL JOURNAL January 2024 Volume 64 Number 5