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Conductor Biography – Recordings – Recent Performances – Works Premiered – Repertoire List Gary D. Cannon is an extremely dynamic a choral conductor throughout the Greater Seattle area. He is particularly noted for his ability to achieve artistic success with singers of any level, from beginning student or adult singers, to professional choirs. Cannon's breadth of repertoire is extremely extensive, ranging from chant to music of today and every era between. He works often with Northwest composers, and has led several world premiere performances. He is currently the Artistic Director of the Cascadian Chorale, a 30-voice auditioned ensemble based in Bellevue, Washington. In the fall of 2007 he was guest conductor of the Vashon Island Chorale for their December concerts, and in the fall of 2008 will assume duties as their Artistic Director. In spring 2007, Cannon began as choir director at Bethel Lutheran Church in Shoreline. He has also been the regular chorusmaster of the Northwest Mahler Festival since 2001, having prepared Mahler's Second and Third Symphonies and Das klagende Lied, Bruckner's Te Deum, Barber's Prayers of Kierkegaard, and Vaughan Williams's Dona nobis pacem. He was also guest conductor of the Kirkland Choral Society in spring 2006, and led ensembles large and small at the Midsummer Musical Retreat in Walla Walla, 2002–6. A particular highlight of Cannon's career was the creation of the Annas Bay Chamber Choir, a sixteen-voice professional choir affiliated with the Annas Bay Music Festival, of which he was the founding Director of Choral Music. In Annas Bay's inaugural season in the summer of 2006, Cannon conducted three concerts of twentieth-century American music, including Copland's In the Beginning, John Corigliano's Fern Hill, William Albright's Chichester Mass, and three world premieres by Northwest composers Linda Gingrich, David Hahn, Roupen Shakarian, as well as music by Barber, Ives, Argento, Thompson, Rorem, Moses Hogan, and others. Since arriving in Seattle in 1999 for graduate studies at the University of Washington, Cannon immediately became in great demand. The year 2000 began his five years as choir director at St. Thomas More Catholic Church in Lynnwood, and his first engagement with the Northwest Mahler Festival followed in spring 2001. He has conducted rehearsals of several of the region's leading choirs, including Opus 7, Cascadian Chorale, Cantaré, and Northwest Chorale. He has directed nearly all of the choral ensembles at the University of Washington, including periods as director of the University Singers, assistant director of the UW Chamber Singers, University Chorale, and Oratorio Choir, and co-founder of the UW Men's Ensemble. At the UW, he conducted in concert Britten's Ballad of Heroes and many shorter works, and prepared ensembles for performances of Bach's Mass in B minor, Beethoven's Missa Solemnis and Ninth Symphony, Bernstein's Chichester Psalms, Duruflé's Requiem and Messe Cum jubilo, Fauré's Requiem, Handel's Messiah and Zadok the Priest, Honegger's King David, Mendelssohn's Elijah, Mozart's Requiem, Poulenc's opera Dialogues des Carmélites, and a vast quantity of shorter works. While still an undergraduate at the University of California, Davis, Cannon was already quite active in choral circles. He founded a highly select student vocal/instrumental ensemble, Pulchritudina, conducting music ranging from Renaissance Mexico to twentieth-century Netherlands. He co-directed the Davis Festival Singers, led the choir at Robert E. Willett Elementary School, and conducted a regional performance of the Mormon cantata From Cumorah's Hill by Stephen Kapp Perry. He also assisted in preparations of the UCD University Chorus. Indeed, his conducting experience extends all the back to high school, where he was the first student conductor in the history of the Concord High School choirs in Concord, California. Cannon currently pursues the Doctor of Musical Arts degree at the University of Washington, under the tutelage of Geoffrey Boers and Abraham Kaplan. His dissertation in progress deals with the early life and works of the twentieth-century British composer, William Walton. His other teachers at the UW have included Peter Erös and James Savage. In November 2001 he conducted in a master class with Dale Warland. While an undergraduate at the University of California, Davis, he studied with D. Kern Holoman and Jeffrey Thomas. A highlight of his undergraduate education was rehearsing Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto with Charles Rosen at the keyboard. He has also had the opportunity to work with and learn from Joseph Crnko, Paul Hillier and Peter Phillips. This section is under construction. See Recordings for selected information. This section is under construction. WORKS PREMIERED or Commissioned by Cannon
* including works for chorus and orchestra, works for orchestra alone, and opera |