Featured Composer

2010-2011 Featured Composer:  Dr. Wayne Eastwood

Dr. Wayne Eastwood
 
 
 

     "I have followed Schola Cantorum on Hudson since its inception 16    
      years ago and enjoyed seeing it continue to grow in its commitment to     
      honest artistry and musical integrity. To be asked to be their featured
      composer came as both a surprise and great honor. Finding so musical an
      ensemble, and one led by a conductor I greatly admire, willing to take up
      such musical and spiritual challenges as are contained in my music at once
      warms my heart and terrifies my soul. If the journey is of more weight than
      the destination, then we who write music must ever be in awe of those
      willing to turn it into sound."
 
 
 
 
 
Arkansas-born composer, Wayne Eastwood, wrote his first song when he was ten years old, the sole fruit born of a brief but embrangled one-way love affair with his fourth-grade teacher. All-in-all, he thought the whole thing pretty easy work, so he spent his formative years teaching himself music theory, vocal production, and composition.
 
Unfortunately, on arriving at university, he found that most of his self-taught skills had to be untaught, a process that left him with severe emotional scars and his professors with a few more tangible ones. None the less, his teachers cleaned him up enough to get through school without embarrassing anybody excessively and with a portfolio sufficient to interest Ned Rorem in tutoring him.
 
Finding school easier than working for a living, he returned regularly to university studies, usually with a new batch of songs dedicated to yet another fourth-grade teacher. He holds an undergraduate degree in voice, a master’s degree in composition, and a Ph.D. in conducting from the College of Music, the University of North Texas. He would have taken more degrees, but the university changed the locks on the doors and told him to get a life.
 
Degree in hand, he then worked as a conductor, teacher, truck driver, singer, book editor, computer programmer, and a composer of commercial jingles. Remember that time in the past when you’ve had a really bad tune stuck in your head for days? He’s truly sorry about that. He has worked as the Director of Choral Activities for universities in Texas and Idaho, taught graduate courses in California and Ohio, and spent a term at the University of Łodz, Poland, lecturing on the dangers of American music.
 
He is married to a pastor who still hopes she can help redeem his soul and composes in an 1885 Victorian held together by paint and inertia. His music appears regularly in the programs of university choruses and standing choirs across the country. The Philippine-based Ateneo Chamber Singers sang a set of his choral works on their recent world tour, to outstanding reviews and a few screams for diplomatic immunity.


He collects Pogo first editions, vintage LPs, and patterned paper towels that he stuffs between the cracks in the walls of his house. He knows (but is not telling) a plethora of occult secrets about some East-coast conductors, and Homeland Security, so far as is known, has not identified him as a person of interest.

2009–2010 Featured Composer: Roger Wesby

The selection of Dr. Roger Wesby as SCH's inaugural Featured Composer was a logical one. The SCH ensemble had enjoyed performing his compositions in the past, and his multi-national work in various indigenous traditions was a natural fit with our diverse and innovative programming.

Dr. Roger Wesby is the Associate Professor of Music at Wagner College in Staten Island. He was born in Worcester, Massachusetts. From age ten he played the trumpet and was active from early on in both jazz and classical genres. He attended the Eastman School of Music where he majored in composition, studying with Warren Benson and Samuel Adler. With his wife of 40 years, Barbara, he served as a Peace Corps Volunteer, teaching and performing music in El Salvador and Costa Rica, where he later worked professionally. He served as Academic Coordinator of the National Youth Symphony Orchestra, and later became Director of the School of Music at the National University where he conducted the Chamber Choir and Jazz Ensemble. With Barbara Wesby and Diego Díaz, he published Lecture elemental, a musicianship textbook used in many countries of Latin America. He served as conductor of the National Symphonic Chorus and regularly guest conducted the National Symphony Orchestra for four seasons before his return to the United States in 1985. The Wesby’s two children, Carla, a professional singer in Manhattan, and Andrew, a filmmaker and professional musician in Boston, were born in Costa Rica.

Roger Wesby received a master’s degree from Westminster Choir College where he studied with Joseph Flummerfelt. He earned the title of Doctor of Music at Indiana University, studying with Robert Porco. He was Director of Choral Activities at the University of Kentucky and founded the Lexington Children’s Chorus and New Voices, an elite vocal chamber ensemble. He was Director of Choral Activities at Augustana College, Rock Island, Illinois and conductor of the Handel Oratorio Society. An active clinician, guest conductor and published composer/arranger, Wesby was Choir Director of Lutheran Summer Music at St. Olaf College. He has written articles on the history of jazz and blues for the Encyclopedia of New Jersey. In 2002 he composed the Jazz Mass, which has been used in several Lutheran Churches. In 2006 he composed a special liturgy for the 150th Anniversary of Trinity Lutheran Church. Since 1996 Roger Wesby has served Director of Choral Activities and Vocal Studies at Wagner College in Staten Island, New York where he teaches Music History, the History of Blues and Jazz, Conducting and Choral Methods.

Roger Wesby has toured with choirs and vocal ensembles in North, Central and South America. He has composed for band, orchestra, jazz band, chamber ensembles and choirs and is the author of scores of arrangements for choirs, jazz bands and vocal jazz ensembles. Since coming to Wagner he has founded the vocal ensembles, Stretto and the Jazz Lab, has transformed the Treble Concert Choir into a first-rate women’s chorus. Since he assumed the direction of the choirs at the college, Wagner choirs have been invited to sing three times at Carnegie Hall, and have given numerous concerts with the Staten Island Symphony and Philharmonic Orchestras. Wesby is the founder of the annual Italian Idol Singing Contest and Viva Italia! Concerts, as well as the annual Tribute to Black Music and helped establish the annual Music Composition Contest for the Stanley Drama Awards. He annually conducts the Alumni Choir at Reunion. Roger Wesby has been an active participant in the college’s re-connecting with its Lutheran Heritage. He was named “Featured Composer” for the 2009-2010 season of the semi-professional choir Schola Cantorum on Hudson of Jersey City, New Jersey.