For Immediate Release

CHANTICLEER ANNOUNCES MULTIPLE WINNERS OF
3rd BIENNIAL STUDENT COMPOSER COMPETITION
GRAMMY-WINNING ENSEMBLE  RECEIVED 58 ENTRIES,
MANY OF SUPERB QUALITY

San Francisco, June 5, 2006—Chanticleer, the internationally-acclaimed, 12-man vocal ensemble, announces multiple winners of its third biennial Student Composer Competition.  The competition is designed to encourage current composition students to write quality works for high school-level choirs.  The seven winners are: Vicente Chavarria, Miami, FL; Erica Glenn, Tempe, AZ; Blake R. Henson, Princeton, NJ; Matthew Peterson, Northfield, MN; Philip Rice, Coldwater, MI; Jorge Sosa, New York, NY; and Dale Trumbore, Chatham, NJ. Honorable mentions went to Mark Fromm, Pittsburgh, PA and Samuel Hunter, Fairview, NC.

The winning compositions will be performed at future San Francisco Chanticleer Youth Choral Festivals.  These day-long workshops draw up to 250 students from across the Bay Area  and occur annually in San Francisco in the fall. Compositions were written for a cappella SATB High School level choir, three to five minutes in duration. All entrants were enrolled as students at time of submission, and ranged in education level from doctoral candidates to high school juniors.

The 2003 competition winner was Eric Barnum, whose work based on a Byron poem, “She Walks in Beauty” was included on Chanticleer’s 2004-05 national tour program. The 2001 competition winner was Kelly Crandell, then a student at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, for his setting of the Shakespeare text, “Blow, blow thou winter wind.” Both winning works have been published by Hinshaw Music of North Carolina (www.hinshawmusic.com ); the winners of the 2006 competition are also eligible for publication by Hinshaw.

Hailed by the New Yorker magazine as “America’s favorite choral ensemble” and by the Los Angeles Times for its “luxurious perfection,” the GRAMMY® Award-winning vocal ensemble Chanticleer has developed a remarkable reputation for its vivid interpretations of vocal literature, from Renaissance to jazz, and from gospel to venturesome new music. With its seamless blend of twelve male voices, ranging from countertenor to bass, the ensemble, led by Music Director Joseph Jennings, has earned international renown as “an orchestra of voices.”

Since 1994 Chanticleer has been recording exclusively for Warner Classics, making the group’s recordings available worldwide.  In addition to recording and an active touring schedule of some 100 concerts, including a Bay Area subscription season, since 1986 the ensemble has maintained an educational program designed to inspire young singers that has reached thousands of young people in the Bay Area and throughout the United States.

PRESS CONTACT:  Nancy Roberts, 415-252-8589 ext.306, nroberts@chanticleer.org

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