NCCO10 Featured Artists
For our 10th Biennial National Conference, the Executive Board has invited two visionary artists of international renown to share their wisdom and expertise with our membership.
Rosephanye Powell has been hailed as one of America’s premier women composers of choral music. She has an impressive catalogue of works published by some of the nation’s leading publishers, including the Hal Leonard Corporation, the Fred Bock Music Companies, Gentry Publications, Oxford University Press, Alliance Music Publications, and Shawnee Press. Dr. Powell’s works have been conducted and premiered by nationally and internationally renowned conductors and have been premiered at distinguished halls around the country, including Carnegie Hall, the Lincoln Center, Spivey Hall, and Strathmore Hall. Dr. Powell’s works have been commissioned by professional choral ensembles, including the Baltimore Choral Arts Society; Sing for the Cure (the Dallas Women's Chorus and the Turtle Creek Chorale); Cantus, men's a cappella vocal ensemble; and Chanticleer, the Grammy award-winning men’s vocal ensemble.
Dr. Powell is commissioned yearly to compose for university choruses, professional, community and church choirs, as well as secondary school choruses. Her work has been auctioned by Chorus America and her compositions are in great demand at choral festivals around the country, frequently appearing on the regional and national conventions of the American Choral Directors Association, as well as Honor Choir festivals. Dr. Powell’s compositions include sacred and secular works for SATB chorus, SSAA chorus, TTBB chorus and children’s voices.
Recent commission and premiere highlights include: Harriet Tubman: Journey to Freedom, an eight-movement work for narrator, mezzo-soprano soloist, SATB chorus, four-hands piano, brass ensemble, percussion ensemble, and bass, commissioned and premiered by the California State University, Dominguez Hills; The Cry of Jeremiah, a four-movement sacred work for narrator, SATB chorus, organ and orchestra, commissioned by the American Guild of Organists, premiered at the Lincoln Center, (NY), the National Philharmonic at Strathmore Hall (Washington, DC), and the Vox Anima Singers at Cadogan Hall, (London, England); Quiet Revolutionary, a three-movement work for SATB chorus and piano commissioned by Harvard University choirs (Cambridge, MA); Love Will Make A Way (SATB) premiered by the Metropolitan Youth Chorale of New York at Lincoln Center; Get Busy (SATB) commissioned and premiered by Choirs of America Choral Festival and conducted by the composer at Carnegie Hall; A Christmas Medley (SATB), commissioned and recorded by Chanticleer on their CD, Chanticleer Sings Christmas; I Want to Die While You Love Me (SSAA), composed for the ACDA Women’s Choirs Commission Consortium; Gospel Trinity (SATB), a four-movement work for narrator, chorus, piano and orchestra, commissioned by the Brehm Center for Worship, Theology and the Arts/Fuller Theological Seminary (CA) and premiered at the Lincoln Center, NY; With What Shall I Come (SATB), composed for the St. Olaf Choir, Anton Armstrong, conductor, and premiered at Carnegie Hall; and Ev’ry Time I Feel the Spirit, an SSAA spiritual arranged for The Sofia Chamber Choir “Vassil Arnaudov”- Bulgaria, Southeastern Europe.
Dr. Powell serves as Professor of Voice and Coordinator of Voice Studies at Auburn University where she teaches voice and conductors the Women's Chorus. Additionally, Dr. Powell co-conducts the Concert Choir and AU Gospel Choir. She holds degrees from The Florida State University, Westminster Choir College, and Alabama State University. Her research focuses on the art of the African American spiritual and spirituals dialect; and voice care concerns for voice professionals (music educators, choral directors, and choral singers). She serves as a lecturer, composer-in-residence, clinician, conductor, and adjudicator at universities and festivals nationally and internationally, including recent commitments in Australia, England, Germany, Italy, Jamaica, and Puerto Rico. Dr. Powell serves yearly as a conductor for All-State and Honor Choirs throughout the country. Recent commitments include California, Colorado, Delaware, Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Tennessee.
Dr. Powell has received numerous awards including the prestigious “Luise Vosgerchian Teaching Award,” presented by the Harvard University Office for the Arts in 2022. Additionally, she was honored with the “Living Legend Award” presented by California State University African Diaspora Sacred Music Festival in Los Angeles; and was a recent recipient of the Marquis Who’s Who “Lifetime Achievement Award.” Dr. Powell was listed in the first edition of the international publication Who Is Who in Choral Music. Additionally, she has been included in Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers and Outstanding Young Women in America.
Dr. Powell is a member of the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP), the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA), Chorus America, the National Association for Music Education (NAFME), the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS), and the National Collegiate Choral Organization (NCCO).
Kathy Saltzman Romey is Professor Emerita of Music and former Director of Choral Activities at the University of Minnesota, where she oversaw the graduate program in choral conducting and conducted choirs for thirty years. She is also Artistic Director of the 200-voice symphonic chorus, The Minnesota Chorale, which serves as principal chorus for the Minnesota Orchestra. Known for her meticulous training of choirs, Romey has conducted the Chorale in regional, national and international forums and annually coordinates BRIDGES, the nationally acclaimed education-outreach program of the Minnesota Chorale. A passionate advocate of civic engagement, Romey documented the Bridges program in a co-authored chapter with two University of Minnesota conducting students for the 2009 book Wisdom, Wit and Will: Women Choral Conductors on Their Art published by GIA Publications.
Romey has served on the staff of the Oregon Bach Festival since 1984 and is chorus master of the Festival Chorus, which she prepares for annual concerts, commissions and recording projects. Festival programs have included world premiere performances of major works by Tan Dun, Arvo Pärt, Krzysztof Penderecki, Sven-David Sandström, James MacMillan, and Richard Danielpour. Romey has assisted with twelve recordings, including the Oregon Bach Festival’s 2001 Grammy Award-winning CD of Krzysztof Penderecki’s Credo under Helmuth Rilling, Minnesota Orchestra’s Grammy-nominated disc of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, and the recent recordings of Mahler Symphonies Nos. 2, 3, and 8 with Osmo Vänskä leading the Minnesota Orchestra and Minnesota Chorale.
Active as a guest conductor, chorus master, and clinician throughout the United States and Europe, Romey has prepared ensembles with the Internationale Bachakademie Stuttgart for special programs and tours in Austria, Chile, France, Germany, Poland, Switzerland and the USA. Currently, she oversees the chorus of the Junges Stuttgarter Bach Ensemble in collaboration with artistic director Hans-Christoph Rademann. From 2013-2018, she also served on the faculty of the Weimar Bach Cantata Academy, focusing on the study and presentation of cantatas by Johann Sebastian Bach under the direction of Bach scholar and conductor Helmuth Rilling. In addition to her work with Bach Academies, Romey has prepared programs with Berkshire Choral International, the Carnegie Hall Festival Chorus, Grant Park Music Festival, Netherlands Radio Choir, Teatro del Lago Festival, and Westminster Symphonic Choir.
Romey earned an Artistic Degree in Choral Conducting under Helmuth Rilling from the Frankfurt Musikhochschule in 1984. From 1985-1992, she served as Director of Choral Activities at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota and in 1992, joined the faculty at the University of Minnesota. In 2006, the University recognized her work with the Arthur Motley award for exemplary teaching. Romey co-authored a book chapter in 2012 with colleague Matthew Mehaffey on choral music in the United States for the Cambridge Companion to Choral Music. In 2014, she collaborated with Helmuth Rilling on his book MESSIAH: Understanding and Performing Handel’s Masterpiece. Romey was the recipient of Chorus America’s 2021 Distinguished Service award and recognized as one of four Minnesota choral luminaries at the 2021 Minnesota State Conference of the American Choral Directors Association.