Award-winning composers perform with local, regional choirs
Glacier and Flathead High Schools will host award-winning composers Josh Rist and Jake Runestad Jan. 23 and 24. Rist of Salem, Oregon, and is returning after working with the Glacier choirs in May of 2021. Runestad of Minneapolis is Grammy-nominated and will be working with choirs in Kalispell for the first time.
Top choirs from Glacier, Flathead, Great Falls and Charles M. Russell high schools will join together for two days of music with Rist and Runestad, culminating in a concert featuring performances of their works at 5 p.m. Monday, Jan. 24, in the Glacier High School performance hall. The performance is free and open to the public. Schools will perform numbers individually, ending with two pieces with all four choirs.
The Runestad selection will be "Let My Love Be Heard," an a cappella piece inspired by the 2015 Paris terrorist attacks. "Psalm of Life" by Rist is a high-energy piece about leaving "footprints in the sands of time" and "taking heart.”
About the composers
A native of Rockford, Illiinois, Jake Runestad is an award-winning composer. He has received commissions and performances from leading ensembles and organizations, among them the Washington National Opera, Swedish Radio Symphony, Netherlands Radio Choir and Dallas Symphony Orchestra. His first album, “The Hope of Loving,” received a 2020 Grammy award nomination. Runestad is one of the youngest full-time composers in the world and holds a master’s degree in composition from the Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University where he studied with Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Kevin Puts.
Joshua Rist earned his undergraduate and graduate degrees in music education and first began his journey as a choral composer at Oregon State University. He is a three-time winner of OSU’s Kraft Choral Composition Challenge. His music is published through Walton, Colla Voce, earthsongs, and MusicSpoke and has been performed by choirs throughout the United States and abroad. His first orchestral collaboration, an arrangement of Invictus by Jordan Jenkins for full orchestra and choir, premiered in Paris for the 75th anniversary of D-Day and the Liberation of France Choral Festival. His compositions have been programmed for All-State and regional honor choirs and performed at State, Divisional and National ACDA and NAfME Conventions.
Rist teaches in Oregon and is a guest conductor/educator leading choir retreats, honor choirs, and working as a clinician for choral festivals. He hosts a podcast called “Composition” where he converses with composers on their creative process and insights. Rist founded and directed the Two Rivers Correctional Institution Men’s Chorus in Umatilla, Oregon, and the Summer Community Choir in Hermiston, Oregon.
