Thursday, May 9, 2019
Watch online May 16 and 17
The Westminster Choir College community looks forward to the week of May 13 when it will welcome alumni, families and friends to campus to celebrate class reunions and to honor the students who will graduate on Friday, May 17. Many of the reunion events and Commencement will be available to view world-wide when they are live-streamed from the Westminster campus and the Princeton University Chapel. Follow this link to view all livestreams.
Thursday, May 16 at 8 p.m., the Westminster Jubilee Singers, conducted by alumnus Vinroy D. Brown, Jr. , will present a concert featuring some of the works the ensemble has performed in the spring semester.
Alumni Reunion events on Friday, May 17, will be live-streamed beginning with the Alumni Chapel Service at 9 a.m., followed by a concert by the Westminster Williamson Voices, conducted by James Jordan, at 10:45 a.m. Alumni Awards will be presented at noon to:
- Dr. Gerald S. Custer '75 – Alumni Merit Award
- Darren N. Daily '89 – Alumni Merit Award
- Timothy L. Hall '80, '89 – Alumni Merit Award
- P. Randolph Hill - Westminster Service Award
- Professor Phyllis Alpert Lehrer - Westminster Merit Award
- Professor Laura Brooks Rice - Williamson Medal
Follow this link for a complete Westminster Choir College Alumni Reunions schedule.
Westminster’s Commencement Ceremony in the Princeton University Chapel begins with pre-ceremony music at 3:15 p.m. The procession begins at 4 p.m. Westminster alumnus Donald Nally will deliver the Commencement Address and Professor James Goldsworthy will deliver the Charge to the Graduating Classes. Dr. Nally will also be awarded an honorary Doctor of Music degree.
Donald Nally '87 is responsible for imagining, programming, commissioning and conducting The Crossing, a professional chamber choir dedicated to new music. Under Nally's leadership, The Crossing won two consecutive Grammy Awards for the Best Choral Performance in 2017 and 2018. He is also the director of choral organizations at Northwestern University where he holds the John W. Beattie Chair of Music. His previous positions include serving as chorus master at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Welsh National Opera, Opera Philadelphia and, for many seasons, at the Spoleto Festival in Italy. He has also served as music director of Cincinnati's Vocal Arts Ensemble, chorus master at The Chicago Bach Project and guest conductor throughout Europe and the United States, most notably with the Grant Park Symphony Chorus, the Philharmonia Chorus in London, the Santa Fe Desert Chorale and the Latvian State Choir.
His collaborations have included the New York Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Lincoln Center, Mostly Mozart, the Cleveland Museum of Art, Carnegie Hall, National Sawdust, the Barnes Foundation, Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), the American Composers Orchestra and The Big Sky Conservatory in Montana where The Crossing holds an annual residency.
Dr. Nally earned a Bachelor of Music in Music Education from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, a Master of Music in Choral Conducting from Westminster Choir College and a Doctor of Musical Arts in Choral Conducting from the University of Illinois, and he has returned to campus as a visiting artist and to serve on the guest faculty of Westminster's Summer Choral Conducting Institute for the past three years.
In his 23 years of service to the community of Westminster Choir College and Rider University, Professor of Piano James Goldsworthy, has been an associate dean, the chair of three departments, coordinator of piano secondary, a member of University-wide and Westminster-specific committees, the recipient of a New Jersey Educational Opportunity Fund Champion award and an avid student of the art of music.
Honored by Rider University’s 2012 Distinguished Teaching Award, he has also taught at Goshen College, Stanford University and the University of St. Thomas. During two residencies in Vienna, one under the auspices of a Fulbright grant, Dr. Goldsworthy studied late 18th and early 19th-century fortepiano construction, did research in pianoforte instruction of the same time period and coached voice students at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst.
He has performed throughout Europe, Israel, Japan, Canada, and the United States; co-edited with Judith Bettina song collections of Tobias Picker and Chester Biscardi; premiered and recorded with Judith Bettina works by Milton Babbitt, Mel Powell, Chester Biscardi, Christopher Berg, Tobias Picker and David Rakowski; and collaborated in performance with many Westminster colleagues. He holds degrees from Southern Methodist University and Stanford University, and he has studied at the Université Catholique de l’Ouest (Angers, France), the Shinichi Suzuki Talent Education Institute (Matsumoto, Japan), Universität Wien and the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Vienna.
All Westminster Choir College students participate in its Commencement ceremony, which includes choral performances, hymns and anthems. One highlight is the performance of the anthem of the graduating classes, for which the composer and the conductor are selected by audition. This year graduating student Lauren Sander ’19 will conduct the anthem Forever composed by Westminster sophomore Samuel Scheibe.