Dale Warland (born April 14, 1932, Fort Dodge, Iowa) is an American conductor, composer, founder of the Grammy-nominated Dale Warland Singers, scholar, teacher, choral consultant, and renowned champion of contemporary choral composers. Warland is one of only two choral conductors (along with Robert Shaw (conductor)) inducted into the American Classical Music Hall of Fame.
Joseph Flummerfelt (February 24, 1937 – March 1, 2019) was an American conductor. He taught at Westminster Choir College in Princeton, New Jersey for three decades. He was a co-founder of the Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston, South Carolina in 1977, and its director of choral activities from 1977 to 2013. He was also the chorus master of the Festival dei Due Mondi in Italy from 1971 to 1993. According to The New York Times, he "played an outsize, if not always highly visible, role in American classical music."
Vance George (born 1933) is an American choral conductor from Nappanee, Indiana.A protégé of Margaret Hillis, Vance George served as choral director of the San Francisco Symphony Chorus for 23 years (1983–2006).As guest conductor of the San Francisco Symphony, he led performances of Bach's Mass in B Minor, St Matthew Passion, and St John Passion.
Under his leadership, the Chorus won four Grammy Awards, including Best Choral Album (for Brahms' A German Requiem and Orff's Carmina Burana) and Classical Album of the Year. The SFS Chorus was also nominated for a fifth Grammy (Best Crossover Recording, Christmas by the Bay).
The SFS Chorus won its first Emmy Award under George for the 2001 concert production of Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd (broadcast on KQED).
Vance George graduated from Goshen College and Indiana University, and was awarded an honorary doctorate in 1997 by Kent State University. In 1999, Chorus America presented him with a Lifetime Achievement Award. He was inducted as a National Patron of Delta Omicron, an international professional music fraternity on April 3, 2008.
Paul William Whear (November 13, 1925 – March 25, 2021) was an American composer, conductor, music educator, and double-bassist.
Randy Kerber (born September 25, 1958) is an American composer, orchestrator and keyboard player, who has had a prolific career in the world of cinema.Kerber was born in Encino, California. He began his first national tour with Bette Midler in 1977 at the age of 19. He was nominated for an Oscar in 1986, along with Quincy Jones and others, for Best Original Score for the motion picture The Color Purple. He was also nominated for a Grammy for his arrangement of "Over the Rainbow" for Barbra Streisand.
As a studio keyboardist, Kerber has worked on over 800 motion pictures including Titanic, A Beautiful Mind, and the first three films of the Harry Potter franchise. The piano in the opening and closing scenes of Forrest Gump, which features a feather floating in the wind, was played by Kerber and keyboardist Randy Waldman.
Kerber has been an orchestrator on over 50 films, including work with Academy Award winner James Horner. He worked with Eric Clapton as keyboardist, orchestrator, and conductor on the 1991 film Rush, and playing on the Grammy Award-winning song "Tears in Heaven".
During his career, Kerber has worked with a wide range of artists including Michael Jackson, Paul Anka, Leonard Cohen, Rickie Lee Jones, A. R. Rahman, Whitney Houston, Michael Bolton, Rod Stewart, B.B. King, Bill Medley, Annie Lennox, Art Garfunkel, José Feliciano, Anastacia, Celine Dion, Natalie Cole, Al Jarreau, Ray Charles, Neil Diamond, Elisa, Julio Iglesias, Barry Manilow, Don Ellis, Ricky Martin, Bette Midler, Corey Hart, Eric Burdon, Kenny Rogers, Donna Summer, George Benson, Diana Ross, Marta Sanchez, Frank Sinatra, Jean-Yves Thibaudet and Dionne Warwick; and groups including Air Supply, America, Def Leppard, The Temptations, Manhattan Transfer, Lisa Stansfield, and The Three Degrees.
Kerber also performed piano solos on Steven Spielberg's Lincoln, Robert Zemeckis' Flight, and Steven Soderbergh's Behind the Candelabra for which he also trained Michael Douglas on the piano. Kerber also worked closely with actors Jason Schwartzman (for his role in the Disney film Saving Mr. Banks), Zoe Saldana for her turn as Nina Simone in the biopic Nina, and Ryan Gosling for his role of Sebastian in La La Land.
The 2016 Japanese PlayStation 4 role-playing game I Am Setsuna features a score performed almost entirely on solo piano by Kerber. In the spring of 2020 Kerber was a featured cast member and co-composer in the Netflix series The Eddy.
Gerard Schwarz (born August 19, 1947), also known as Gerry Schwarz or Jerry Schwarz, is an American symphony conductor and trumpeter. As of 2019, Schwarz serves as the Artistic and Music Director of Palm Beach Symphony and the Director of Orchestral Activities and Music Director of the Frost Symphony Orchestra at the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami.