The Composers

James Helme Sutcliffe was born in China (1929), educated at Geelong College and Melbourne Conservatory in Australia as well as at Juilliard School and Eastman School of Music. He was associate professor of music at Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, from 1957 to 1961. Since then he has lived in Europe where he is opera critic for OPERA, Opera Canada, OPERNWELT and the Herald Tribune. The two carols included here were written for the Plymouth Congregational Church Choir, Minneapolis.

Richard DeLong (1951-1994) continues to receive a rapidly growing national reputation as a choral composer. Very active at the national and local levels of the American Guild of Organists and the American Choral Directors Association, Mr. DeLong served as Director of Music at St. Mark the Evangelist, Plano, Texas from 1980 until his untimely death in 1994.

John Carter (b. 1930) has worked with church and school choral groups for over 35 years, serving as clinician, workshop leader, and guest conductor for festivals, contests, and choral sessions. Mr. Carter has over 400 published choral works to his credit, many of these having been commissioned by churches, schools, and community choruses. He and his wife, Mary Kay Beall, are directors of Music and Youth Ministries at Northwest United Methodist Church, Columbus, Ohio.

Robert Schuneman (b. 1934) is President and principal owner of ECS Publishing in Boston and producer of this recording. Trained as a musicologist and conductor, his prior careers included serving churches in San Francisco, New York, Glens Falls (NY), Chicago, and Cambridge (MA), and teaching at Concordia Senior College (Fort Wayne, IN), Westminster Choir College, Boston Conservatory of Music, and New England Conservatory of Music.

Ronald Arnatt (b. 1930) is currently Director of Music at St. John's Church, Beverly Farms, MA and an editor at ECS Publishing, Boston. Born and trained in England where he was a chorister at both Westminster Abbey and King's College, Cambridge, Dr. Arnatt has purseud his entire adult career in the United States. His distinguished career has included directing music at Christ Church Cathedral, St. Louis; being President of the American Guild of Organists, and directing the church music program at Westminster Choir College. His many compositions, both secular and sacred include works for orchestra, voice, keyboard, and chamber ensembles.

Jane Marshall (b. 1924) has long been active in the Hymn Society of America, the American Guild of Organists, the American Choral Directors Association, and the Chorister's Guild. Ms. Marshall teaches choral conducting and theory at Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University. Long a strong advocate of congregational song, she has been recently composing much choral music.

Richard Wayne Dirkson (b. 1921) is the retired Organist and Choirmaster and Canon Precentor Emeritus of the Washington National Cathedral in the nation's capitol. He began his forty-nine years there as a cathedral musician and Director of Music in the Cathedral's schools. In 1964 he became the Cathedral's first Program Director and in 1969 the first layman Precentor of a cathedral. Named a Canon in 1982, Mr. Dirkson retired in 1991.

John V. Mochnik (b. 1942) is presently Director of Choral Activiites at Southern Illinois Univeristy, Carbondale. Having studied at Heidelberg College, Indiana Univeristy, and the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, Mr. Mochnik has also taught previously at Wake Forest University, Salem College, the State University of New York at Cortland, and the University of Kentucky at Prestonburg. He has served as board member, conductor, clinician and editorial advisor of the Moravian Music Foundation, and he was honored with an Award of Merit by the Moravian Music Foundation in 1990.

Leo Nestor, artistic director of the American Repertory Singers, came to Washington D.C. from Los Angeles in 1984 to assume the position of Music Director of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. Under Dr. Nestor's direction, the choir of the Basilica has achieved national prominence and is acclaimed by the Washington Post as "one of Washington's secret treasures." A singer's conductor first, Nestor has envisioned for ARS a stylistic and vocal maleability of unparalleled diversity as response to the literature at hand.

Daniel Pinkham (b. 1923, d. 2006), prolific and versatile composer, was a major force in American music for more than fifty years. His catalog includes four symphonies, cantatas and oratorios, concertos, theater works, chamber music, film scores and choral music. Mr. Pinkham studied with Walter Piston, Aaron Copland, Arthur Honegger, Samuel Barber, and Nadia Boulanger. He is currently on the faculty of the New England Conservatory of Music and is a retired Music Director of historic King's Chapel in Boston. In 1990, the American Guild of Organists name him Composer of the Year.

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