Page 69 - CJJan24

2024 ACDA Southern Region Conference February 21-24, 2024 Louisville, Kentucky

handbell ensembles. In addition, she is the and recordings on the Decca, Sony, and Naxos labels).
music director for Floyd Central’s Theatre Forrest serves as editor at Beckenhorst Press and self-
Arts Department. She is also the artistic di- publishes his concert music through The Music of Dan
rector of Voces Novae, a semi-professional Forrest. He currently chairs the National ACDA Com-
chorus in Louisville, and a freelance col- position Committee, serves as adjunct composition fac-
laborative pianist. She holds degrees from the University ulty at Furman University, mentors composers through
of Louisville and is a National Board Certified Teacher. the annual John Ness Beck Foundation Choral Com-
posers’ Workshop, and serves as artist-in-residence at
Mitchell Road Presbyterian Church (Greenville, SC).
Charles Anthony Silvestri has provided
custom poetry, libretti, and other texts over
a decades-long career to almost a hundred Jim Rittenhouse has been director of
composers globally. He has written for and worship and music at Second Presbyte-
worked with world-class ensembles such rian Church, Louisville, since 2017. Sec-
as VOCES 8, the King’s Singers, HGO, and the Tallis ond’s Sanctuary Choir was featured as
Scholars. Silvestri speaks to choirs, classes, and concert part of the ecumenical service at South-
audiences about his works, the creative process, the mar- ern ACDA in 2018. He recently conducted Haydn’s
riage of words and music, and his collaborative relation- Creation with the choirs from Second Presbyterian and
ships with composers. He is the author of three books, St. Francis in the Fields Episcopal. He holds the per-
including A Silver Thread (GIA 2019), a retrospective of former’s certificate and master of church music degrees
almost twenty years of his lyric poetry. He teaches at from Southern Seminary. Rittenhouse is a frequent
Washburn University. soloist with regional choral and chamber/orchestral
ensembles, including the Louisville Orchestra and the
Blanche Moyse Chorale in Vermont.
Talia Sheehan is a fourth-generation fe-
male church musician, ensemble singer,
and music educator. She has performed Samuel Libra is organist and assistant di-
with Cappella Romana, the Grammy- rector of worship and music at Second
nominated Saint Tikhon Choir, the Gram- Presbyterian Church of Louisville. A na-
my-nominated PaTRAM Institute Singers, and Artefact tive of Minnesota, he graduated from
Ensemble. She is the director of the St. Tikhon’s Music Luther College in Iowa and completed
Program, a one-year intensive music leadership residen- graduate studies at the University of Washington.
cy for Orthodox Christian church musicians. She teach- Libra can regularly be heard in worship and concert
es voice, music theory, and liturgical music, and directs accompanying and performing solo works on organ,
three children’s choirs and a women’s choir. She is also harpsichord, and piano. His research has focused on
the co-founder and program director of Artefact Insti- the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, specifical-
tute, a collective of “culture creators” who work to build ly the intersection between the organ and symphony,
living contexts for the arts and community. through the music of Charles-Marie Widor.

Dan Forrest’s music ranges from major
works for chorus and orchestra to smaller
choral works, and is commissioned and
performed around the world (including
broadcasts on the BBC Proms and NPR

CHORAL JOURNAL January 2024 Volume 64 Number 5 67