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Chapman University Women

About this Artist

The CHAPMAN UNIVERSITY CHOIRS - As one of the oldest private educational institutions in California, Chapman University has a rich tradition in the arts with many of its graduates performing with major orchestras and opera houses throughout the United States and Europe. In recent years, one could hear Chapman graduates in such prestigious locations as the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; the Metropolitan Opera; and in starring roles in Broadway productions of Showboat and Damn Yankees. The School of Music is internationally recognized and offers students a unique artistic and academic experience within the environment of a liberal arts university. Faculty members are nationally and internationally recognized performers, composers, and educators. The Chapman University Choir is a select group of one-hundred singers chosen from all departments of the university. The choir has concertized and recorded extensively throughout Europe, Asia, and the United States, and are featured in the motion picture and soundtrack of Sister Act II. Choirs from Chapman University have been honored with invitations to perform at numerous national and western-regional conventions of the American Choral Director's Association. Recently, they opened the Special Olympics in Beijing, China with Orff's Carmina Burana in the new Forbidden City Concert Hall. The Chapman University Singers is a highly-select group of thirty-two vocal artists. They have been acclaimed in performances throughout the United States and abroad, including recent performances with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl. A Los Angeles Times review said that they performed "resplendently" and "sang clearly and powerfully" in this concert, conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen. Maestro Zubin Mehta conducted the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Chapman University Choir in performances of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony at the new Walt Disney Concert Hall in January 2004. The University Choir, joined by 300 singers from around the United States and Australia, just returned from a thrilling performance of the Berlioz Requiem at the Sydney Opera House on July 4, 2004. Their performance sold-out all 2700 seats and earned seven standing ovations.

WILLIAM HALL has appeared as guest conductor in the Far East and throughout the United States and Europe, including performances with the Vienna Symphony, the Hessischer Rundfunk Orchestra (Frankfurt), the London B.B.C. Symphony, the Musicians of London, the Sinfonia of St. Martin-in-the-Fields and the Central Philharmonic Orchestra of Beijing. In the U.S., he has conducted such orchestras as the San Francisco Symphony, Pasadena Symphony, Pacific Symphony, Inland Empire Symphony, and El Paso Symphony. His professional organization, The William Hall Chorale, was under contract to Columbia Artists Management for over thirty years and sang throughout the U.S. and abroad. Past Chorale tours have included the former Soviet Union, China, Australia and New Zealand, and frequent tours to Europe. Following the Chorale's concert in Vilnius, Lithuania, William Hall was knighted by the officials of the capital city and presented with the "Order of Vilnius." In July 2004, Dr. Hall was invited by Bob Carr, the Premier of New South Wales, to conduct the Berlioz Requiem at the Sydney Opera House. The sold-out concert on July 4 featured over 450 performers from the United States and Australia in celebration of American Independence.

The William Hall Chorale has collaborated with such internationally renowned companies as the Joffrey Ballet, the Bella Lewitsky Dance Company, the San Francisco Ballet, Zubin Mehta and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, Michael Tilson Thomas and the New World Symphony, Keith Lockhart and the Boston Pops Orchestra, and Sir Simon Rattle and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. They have also been featured at such prestigious music festivals as the Los Angeles Olympic Arts Festival, Dubrovnik Music Festival (Yugoslavia), Pablo Casals Festival (Spain), both the Australian and New Zealand National Choral Association Conventions, the Spoleto Music Festival (Italy), and have been featured on numerous occasions with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra both at the Hollywood Bowl and the Los Angeles Music Center.

The William Hall Chorale discography includes numerous recordings on the Klavier label including the critically acclaimed, double compact disc release of Benjamin Britten's War Requiem and Igor Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms; Sergei Rachmaninoff's a cappella masterpiece Vespers; a collection of favorite holiday classics entitled Ceremony and Carols; and a collection of Romantic lieder by Brahms and Schumann coupled with the Liebeslieder Waltzes. The Chorale can also be heard on recordings of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and Mass in C, Durufle's Quatre Motets and Requiem Mass, and recently released recordings of Bach's Mass in B-minor and Verdi's Requiem Mass.

Dr. Hall is the Dean of the School of Music at Chapman University in Orange, California where he was recently honored as the first distinguished professor to hold the Bertea Family Endowed Chair in Music. Most recently, he has successfully led a $10 million fundraising campaign towards the construction of a state-of-the-art music complex which will open September, 2004. Hall is director of choral organizations, teaches courses in conducting, and has guest lectured at major conservatories of music around the world. He has numerous compositions and arrangements on the market including his own choral series with National Music Publishers.