Viking Chorale Archives - �鶹ӰԺ University

On Main Hall Green With … Shannon Gravelle: Uplifting voices in choral music

Communications — Mon, 07 Apr 2025 13:30:43 +0000

About the series: On Main Hall Green With … is an opportunity to connect with faculty on things in and out of the classroom. We’re featuring a different �鶹ӰԺ faculty member each time — same questions, different answers.

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Shannon Gravelle, co-director of choral studies, arrived at �鶹ӰԺ University in fall of 2024 with a passion for choral music and deep experience in leading accomplished choirs and young talent.

The assistant professor of music led choral activities at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh for several years and she serves as the Phyllis and Richard Duesenberg Concert Choir Chair at the Lutheran Summer Music Academy & Festival, a four-week immersive music experience for high school students. She previously worked as director of choral activities/coordinator of music education at Meredith College.

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Gravelle holds a Doctor of Musical Arts from the University of Iowa, a Master of Music from California State University Long Beach, and a bachelor’s degree with a major in music from Luther College.

We caught up with Gravelle to talk about interests in and out of the classroom.

In the classroom

Inside info: What’s one thing you want every student coming into your classes to know about you?

I truly believe your voice matters. That is not a gimmick. What each person contributes to our community is important, and since I teach primarily collaborative learning courses (choir), it matters that every voice is uplifted. Everyone’s contribution has an impact.

Getting energized: What work have you done or will you be doing at �鶹ӰԺ that gets you the most excited?

I’m very excited to create more access to choir for all students across campus. The choral program has a rich and beautiful history of amazing music-making—a tradition that has been celebrated nationally—and I look forward to continuing that tradition with a wider community.

Going places: Is there an example of somewhere your career has taken you (either a physical space or something more intellectual, emotional, or spiritual) that took you by surprise?

I always anticipated that I would move all over the country for graduate school and to find jobs that would be good fits. I grew up in Minnesota, and have lived in Arizona, Iowa, Nebraska, and North Carolina. Imagine my surprise when I was offered the position at �鶹ӰԺ and realized I would land back in the upper Midwest at a school whose choirs I have seen perform for years at national and regional conventions. What a joyful surprise.

Out of the classroom

This or that: If you weren’t teaching for a living, what would you be doing?

If I weren’t teaching for a living, I’d love to either be a barista at an independent coffee shop—such beautiful places of community—or an advocate of some kind to empower others.

Right at home: Whether for work, relaxation or reflection, what’s your favorite spot on campus?

I’m new, so I am still discovering all the places on campus. I will look forward to my new office in Fall 2025, but besides that, I love all of the rehearsal spaces. Those spaces are engaging and active. I’m open to recommendations for spaces to check out.

One book, one recording, one film: Name one of each that speaks to your soul? Or you would recommend to a friend? Or both?

The book I’ve recommended to a lot of friends recently is Better Faster Farther: How Running Changed Everything We Know About Women. In addition to being a runner, I have a passion for understanding how barriers within systems came to exist. I’m not really a person who watches many films. And I can’t pick one recording. I recommend live performances for truly formative experiences. Come to a choir concert on campus.

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Orchestra and choirs bring love, unity to annual Major Works concert

Communications — Mon, 17 Apr 2023 14:41:56 +0000

�鶹ӰԺ University’s Conservatory of Music will present its Major Works concert April 21, an annual showcase of orchestral ��Ի��choral talent from across multiple ensembles.

The performance is set for 8 p.m. in Memorial Chapel, featuring three significant pieces—Lili Boulanger’s orchestral nod to spring, D’un matin deprintemps(Of a Spring Morning),��ܲԱ��ٲ��’s��ܳ��-��ܻ��A Silence Haunts Me, ��Ի��Reena Esmail’s musical embrace of connections between Indian and Western music and cultures, This Love Between Us: Prayers for Unity.

Mark Dupere, director of orchestral studies, will lead the �鶹ӰԺ Symphony Orchestra in the Boulanger opener. Phillip A. Swan, co-director of choral studies, will then conduct as the choirs join for A Silence Haunts Me��Ի��This Love Between Us.

Choirs rehearse with the orchestra in advance of the Major Works concert.

More than 200 students will perform in the Major Works concert, one of the showcase events on the Conservatory calendar each spring. The choirs have been working on the performance for six weeks; the orchestra for four weeks. It includes, among other musical challenges, singing in unfamiliar languages.

“It’s a great opportunity to share our musical talents in the Conservatory,” Swan said. “It’s a project where we get to collaborate interdepartmentally, the orchestra and the choirs working together. … It’s an important part of what we do and it’s a celebration of what our students can do musically.”

The pieces to be performed come with powerful back stories.

A Silence Haunts Me speaks to Beethoven’s agony at losing his hearing, expressed in a heartbreaking letter to his brothers. Runestad, a Minneapolis composer, and Todd Boss, a Minneapolis poet, debuted the choral piece in 2019 to wide acclaim.

This Love Between Us, meanwhile, is about unity, working between the worlds of Indian and Western classical music.

“Its seven movements juxtapose the words of seven major religious traditions of India (Buddhism, Sikhism, Christianity, Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, Jainism, and Islam), and specifically how each of these traditions approaches the topic of unity, of brotherhood, of being kind to one another,” Esmail writes on her website.

Orchestra students rehearse with the choirs in preparation for the Major Works concert.

Sutanu Sur, on tabla, ��Ի��Shreekant Shah, on sitar, will join the �鶹ӰԺ students as guest artists on This Love Between Us.

Sur, who grew up in India ��Ի��now lives in Appleton, performed last year with the Fox Valley Symphony. For many in the audience, it was their first introduction to the tabla, twin hand drums most familiar in the music of India.

“The audience was surprised to learn all the nuances of the tabla,” Sur told globalindian.com. “The only way to promote something is to get people to learn about it.”

Four student soloists will be featured on This Love Between Us—junior Tanvi Thatai, soprano; senior Holly Beemer, alto; junior Matthew Carlson, tenor; and first-year Billy Greene, bass. They’re exploring singing in an unfamiliar musical style.

“It’s a great educational opportunity for them to learn, grow, and create,” Swan said.

��A Silence Haunts Me, senior Ami Hatori will be featured on piano.

If you’re on campus, there is nothing like a live performance; the energy is just palpable. For those who are unable to attend in person, we do offer a livestream and recordings of most Conservatory programs.

Swan called A Silence Haunts Me a “creative force” and said Esmail’s ThisLove Between Us is a complex, gorgeous, and sonically exciting musical adventure. Those two works and the Boulanger orchestral piece bring with them a connecting thread—love.

“I like to find a theme,” Swan said of planning for the Major Works concert. “The connection for this one comes from the title of the Reena Esmail piece, This Love Between Us. It’s love for different things. The first piece embraces a love for spring. The Runestad piece expresses a love for music; Beethoven’s desire and passion to write music and to explore musical sounds. And Esmail’s piece is searching for love between different people, the common bonds we share.”

If you go

What: Major Works Performance

When: 8 p.m. April 21

Where: �鶹ӰԺ Memorial Chapel

Cost:��

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