Emmanuel Commissioning Project & Student Commissioning Award

In Fall 2020, the parish of Emmanuel embarked upon a project to commission new music appropriate for liturgical use and reflective of its rich Anglican heritage.

In this pandemic time, when so much artistic expression has been curtailed within our Church and community, the Emmanuel Commissioning Project seeks to enhance our parish’s liturgy with newly-composed music, to share the resulting compositions with faith communities near and far, and to support composers during a period of great need.

As an integral part of this Project, the Student Commissioning Award seeks to introduce local young composers to writing for liturgical forces (most importantly choir and pipe organ) and to encourage their engagement with our tradition’s great heritage. Emmanuel provides these composers mentorship and access to its grand pipe organ for exploration and experimentation. And, as many student composers are never taught to write for liturgical forces within formal academic curricula, Emmanuel hopes this investment will yield more liturgically-appropriate works by these developing composers in the years and decades to come.

Given the impossibility of singing communally during the global pandemic, all of the 2020 commissioned composers are writing for solo, rather than ensemble, forces.

Read about our six 2020 commissioned composers and their projects below.

2020 Commissions

Dominick DiOrio

Dominick DiOrio was commissioned by Emmanuel Church to compose a new Christmas carol for organ and solo voice.

Using a text of Sara Teasdale (1884–1933), “Hear the Song Begin” was premiered by soprano Jolle Greenleaf and organist Christian Lane on December 16, 2020, as part of Music at Emmanuel.

Dominick DiOrio is a conductor and composer who has won widespread acclaim for his contributions to American music. Whether leading an ensemble or crafting a new score, he brings equal passion and determination to his work in vocal and instrumental music, and he has been recognized with The American Prizes in both Choral Composition (2014) and Choral Performance (2019). He is the 14th Artistic Director & Conductor of the Mendelssohn Club Chorus of Philadelphia.

DiOrio is also a member of the choral conducting faculty at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, a position he has held since 2012. At IU, he leads the select, new music chamber chorus NOTUS, a group that he has elevated to national acclaim through commissions, recording projects, and invited performances at regional and national conferences of the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA). NOTUS' debut album, Of Radiance & Refraction, featured the world premiere recordings of five commissioned works. 

An accomplished conductor, DiOrio has conducted ensembles around the world, from the Houston Chamber Choir and Choral Arts Initiative in the USA to Allmänna Sången and Ars Veritas abroad. He has collaborated with many of today's leading composers and his repertoire spans the gamut of path-breaking works from the 20th and 21st centuries. As a composer, DiOrio has been hailed for a keenly intelligent, evocative style, which shows “a tour de force of inventive thinking and unique colour” (Gramophone), and his over 50 published works have appeared at major venues around the world including the Sydney Opera House, Lincoln Center, and Carnegie Hall. DiOrio’s recent commissioning partners include the Cincinnati Vocal Arts Ensemble & Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra, The Choral Arts Society of Washington, and “The President’s Own” United States Marine Band.

DiOrio currently serves as president of the National Collegiate Choral Organization and as chair of ACDA's National Standing Committee on Composition Initiatives. DiOrio earned the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in conducting from the Yale School of Music, as well as the MMA and MM in conducting from Yale and the BM in composition from Ithaca College.

Piers Connor Kennedy

Piers Connor Kennedy was commissioned by Emmanuel to compose a pair of songs for organ and solo voice.

The first, Praise of Creation sets poetry of George Moses Horton (1798–1884), an enslaved African-American poet known as the “Black Bard of North Carolina.”

The second, A Grain of Sand sets poetry of Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (1825–1911), a Baltimore-born abolitionist, suffragist, and poet — and one of the first African-American women to have her works published in the United States.

Each song employs a moderate vocal range, and could be suitable for many voice types.

Piers Connor Kennedy (b. 1991) is a composer and improviser whose music has been performed internationally by ensembles including the Ligeti Quartet, Sansara and The Gesualdo Six, and has featured at The Welsh Proms and on BBC Radio 3.

Born in Cardiff, Piers was a chorister at Llandaff Cathedral before winning a scholarship to attend the RWCMD Junior Conservatoire, where he studied both classical and jazz piano. He read for a BA in music at St Peter’s College, Oxford, holding a choral scholarship, and was commissioned the chamber piece The Fire of London to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the College’s Royal Charter in 2011. Later, Piers worked as composer and arranger for The Novello Orchestra, and was commissioned Intro and Yeah! for the Wales Millennium Centre’s 10th Anniversary concert series ‘Broadway to the Bay’ in 2015.

Being a passionate choral musician , Piers was delighted to receive commissions in 2017 from the Edington Music Festival (Blessed are the peacemakers) and from The Three Choirs Festival, Worcester (Missa Vigornia). Reading for the Master’s in Music Composition at Darwin College, Cambridge, Piers held a choral scholarship with The Choir of St Johns College Cambridge, who commissioned Christmas Carol in 2018. Also during this time, Piers became acquainted with counter-tenor Hugh Cutting, for whom he composed the part-improvised song-cycle Rough Rhymes. Piers and Hugh have since performed regular lieder recitals across the UK, including many of Piers’ realisations of Renaissance lute songs. As composer-in-residence for Opera Xylem, Piers was commissioned Cain and Abel in 2018; his second opera Journey’s End is prospectively scheduled to receive its première at Tête à Tête Opera Festival, 2021. 

Piers is currently the Helene La Rue Scholar at St Cross College, Oxford, where he is studying for the DPhil in Composition with Martyn Harry. Most recently he has written the song-cycle Songs of Experience for mezzo-soprano Lotte Betts-Dean, as well as commissions from Christ Church Cathedral and The Choir of St John’s College Cambridge. Upcoming projects include works for The Linarol Consort and Ensemble Pro Victoria.

2020 Student Commissioning Awards

David carlton Adams

David Carlton Adams’s work, as proposed, is titled “Kyrie and Statistics” and is for solo voice, recorded choir, and organ.

David Carlton Adams is a composer of vocal, instrumental, and electronic music. A classically trained singer, rock guitarist/multi-instrumentalist, and co-director of a new music non-profit, he lives a rich and varied professional life.

Always drawn to sound and music, David’s ears have led him on a lifelong adventure through all things auditory. By the time he left high school, he led his viola section, played some guitar, had sung a solo in choir, and was conversational in French.

Having jammed original funk-rock onstage at Antone’s, premiered works written by himself and others in halls from Austin to Chicago, performed the symphonic music of Mozart in Vienna, and sung Fauré’s Requiem at Carnegie Hall, and while maintaining an active performing and recording career, David spent several years in Austin writing newly commissioned works; performing in a broad variety of functions, styles, and venues; practicing the too many instruments he plays; writing, arranging, and recording in Austin and Houston; presenting concerts in non-traditional venues through ​Fast Forward Austin​, a 501(c)3 non-profit dedicated to presenting new and innovative music to the Austin community, where he is co-director; creating the position of Music Specialist of the Middle Years Program at the ​International School of Texas​; and teaching music to students as young as three and as old as you please.

David earned a B.M. in Composition at The Butler School of Music at The University of Texas in Austin in 2014. He recently moved to Baltimore with his wife and infant daughter to pursue a Master’s in Music Composition at the Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins.

Christian Lyons

Christian Lyons’ proposal is to write a work for solo organ, based on Psalm 29.

Christian Lyons is a composer, pianist, organist, and music director from North East, MD. He holds a Bachelor of Music degree in Composition and Applied Piano from the University of Delaware and a Master of Music degree in Theory and Composition from West Chester University of Pennsylvania. Currently, he pursues a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Composition at Catholic University. Being a life-long Christian, he has worked for six years as a church music director, first at Union United Methodist Church in Bear, DE, and currently at Mount Lebanon United Methodist Church in Wilmington, DE. Christian’s compositional focus is on music of a sacred nature, as seen in the majority of his works, including Come, They Told Me, an orchestral commission from the St. Paul’s UMC Orchestra, Higher, a piece written for the vocal sextet Variant 6, and his master’s thesis composition, Sovereign, a massive seven- movement work for wind ensemble based on the Book of Revelation. Christian intends to pursue a career in academia while composing music associated with his Christian beliefs.

Conner David McCain

Conner David McCain’s proposal is to write a work for soprano and organ, using text of Rilke and the Requiem Mass.

Conner David McCain is a composer, instructor, keyboardist, and podcaster and holds an MMus from the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. and an MA in Philosophy from the University of St. Andrews in St. Andrews, Scotland. His works have been performed all over the world by ensembles such as Voces8 and the Red Note Ensemble, and he has participated in festivals and masterclasses in Italy, Scotland, and across the United States, studying with composers as diverse as David Ludwig, Philip Stopford, and Dmitri Tymoczko. In addition to being a composer and instructor, he is also active as an organist and church music director.For more information about Conner and his work, please go to connermccain.com.

Benjamin Salman

Benjamin Salman’s proposal is to compose a work for voice and pipe organ using text of St. Augustine’s Confessions.

Composer and pianist Benjamin Salman writes music which is as expressively powerful as it is intellectually complex. Salman’s compositions have been performed on both coasts by ensembles such as the St. Lawrence String Quartet, Stanford New Ensemble, and members of the Seattle Symphony. During the Summer of 2018 he had two new works premiered at the Atlantic Music Festival in Waterville, ME, and this last June he presented an entire recital consisting of premieres of new works at Stanford University, including his nearly hour long Concerto senza Orchestra: Fantasia quasi una Sonata for solo piano. Current composition projects include a cello sonata and a piano concerto; previous works include three string quartets, a piano quartet, a violin concerto, and a song cycle to the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke.

Salman has also performed widely as a pianist – in addition to solo recitals in both Washington and California, he made his concerto debut in the spring of 2013 with Beethoven’s ‘Emperor’ Concerto with the Bainbridge Symphony Orchestra and performed the piece again the next year with the Seattle Festival Orchestra. He also performed as one of six finalists in the 2013 Seattle International Piano Festival Competition, and in April of 2016 performed works of Ferruccio Busoni in New York City as part of a concert celebrating the 150th birthday of the composer. He has also been active as a teacher, collaborative pianist, and chamber musician in Washington and California.

Salman is originally from Seattle, Washington, where he began his musical studies at the age of ten with his father, Mark Salman, though he has improvised on the piano for as long as he can remember. He currently studies composition Felipe Lara at the Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University where he is pursuing his M. M. degree. Previously he received a B. A. in music with concentrations in piano and composition from Stanford University, where he studied composition with Erik Ulman and Piano with George Barth. In high school, he worked with noted composers Samuel Jones and Huck Hodge as part of the Seattle Young Composers Workshop.

While at Stanford, Salman also received a B. A. in Philosophy and Religious Studies, in which his particular areas of focus were aesthetics, metaphysics, and German Idealism. When not composing or playing music, he enjoys going for long walks, arguing about philosophy, and drawing maps of fictional cities. He particularly admires the music of Beethoven, Liszt, and Ives.