Composer-in-Residence |
Composer-Not-in-Residence

The Choral Artists are committed to fine choral music of all periods and cultures. We have a special commitment to fostering the choral tradition through the support of living composers -- both those with recognized, published works and new, emerging choral talent.

Our Composer-in-Residence (CiR) and Composer-Not-in-Residence (CNiR) Programs recognize and encourage choral composers. The goal of our Composer-in-Residence program is to increase the visibility and support of the many talented and prolific choral composers living in the San Francisco Bay Area whose works we have performed -- to the delight of our audiences -- since the inception of the Choral Artists. Our Composer-Not-in-Residence program seeks to expand our reach and increase the diversity of the music fostered and performed by the Choral Artists.

2012 Composer-in-Residence, Allen Shearer

Allen Shearer is our Composer-in-Residence this season. He will write a new work for each of this season’s programs. He is one of the five artistic directors of San Francisco’s Composers, Inc. [more]

2012 Composer-Not-in-Residence, Matt Van Brink

Matt Van Brink is a composer, lyricist, pianist, accordionist and educator. He has received multiple ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Awards, the Northridge Composition Prize, residencies from the MacDowell Colony and the Wurlitzer Foundation of New Mexico and prizes from VocalEssence, San Francisco Choral Artists, TransforMusic, and the Delius Competition. He has performed and recorded with Gamelan Galak Tika and the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra and he is a member of the BMI Musical Theater Workshops.

Van Brink is on the piano and composition faculty at Concordia Conservatory (Bronxville, New York), which has commissioned many of his new works of chamber music and musical theater for its student performers. He has also been commissioned by New York Youth Symphony, Celebrity Series of Boston, Collage New Music, Lara St. John, and others, and his compositions and arrangements are published by Schott Music, Tenuto Publications, Earthsongs, and Hayo Music, and he is the 2011-2012 composer-not-in-residence for San Francisco Choral Artists.

Van Brink has held positions at Hofstra University, M.I.T., Boston University, and Concordia Conservatory. He studied composition with John Harbison and Lukas Foss at Boston University, where he received a doctorate, and with David Dzubay, Samuel Adler, and Don Freund during his undergraduate years at Indiana University. He lives in Brooklyn, New York. [more]