About Joan Szymko

Joan Szymko  

With a catalog of over 100 published choral works, Joan Szymko's music is regularly performed across North America and abroad with performances at national and international choral festivals and competitions. She has presented her work in sessions at both regional and national confereneces of the American Choral Director's Association (ACDA) and was honored to have been selected to present at the (canceled) 2020 World Symposium on Choral Music in Aukland, New Zealand. Commissioned by all manner of choral ensemble (professional, community, church, academic and children’s), Szymko is widely regarded as a foremost composer of literature for women's voices. The ACDA has recognized Szymko's lasting impact on the choral arts in America by selecting her as a recipient of the prestigious Raymond W. Brock Memorial Commission in 2010.

Szymko's many years of experience as a professional choral director animates her choral compositions; her embodied approach to singing and rhythm, dedication to craft and artistry, penchant for storytelling and insistence of quality texts—all relate to her predilections as a conductor and are reflected in her diverse, distinctive choral works. In addition to self published works, her music appears in the catalogs of Santa Barbara Music Publishing, Roger Dean Publishing, Oxford University Press, Walton Music, earthsongs and Treble Clef Press. Szymko was a founding member of the Independent Music Publishers Collective. 

Joan Szymko lives and works in Portland, Oregon, in the beautiful Pacific Northwest region of the United States. A dynamic conductor, she founded and directed Viriditas Vocal Ensemble (1994-2002), has served on the choral music faculty at Portland State University (2013-15) and after 26 seasons, recently retired as Artistic Director of Aurora Chorus. As a visiting artist, Szymko workshops her compositions with choirs in a variety of educational and festival settings across the country and abroad.

(Szymko is pronounced: SHIM-koh) 

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MORE DEATILED BIO (long version)

Joan Szymko was born in Chicago in 1957, the youngest of five children in a devout Catholic home where faith, education and the arts were core values. She began piano study at age eight, led liturgical music at Mass, sang in her high school choir, but most importantly she was an avid listener to a great diversity of music during her formative years. She began her focus on choral studies at the Chicago Musical College at Roosevelt University and received a B.S. in Music Education (1979) at the University of Illinois (Urbana) with a vocal/choral emphasis. She left for Seattle following graduation and soon began arranging and composing music to fill the repertoire needs of the progressively leaning women's and church choirs she directed there in the 1980's and early 90's.  A year of composition study at the University of Washington (1988) and a successful musical theater collaboration, (Cradle and All, 1990), solidified her determination to continue the pursuit of a career in music with an emphasis on composition.

In 1993 Szymko was invited to Portland, Oregon to take on the leadership of Aurora Chorus, a 100 voice women's community chorus. This was the start of a very prolific creative period. In 1994 she began (and still maintains) a fruitful collaborative relationship with director/choreographer Robin Lane and Do Jump! Movement Theater creating underscoring for several major touring productions, earning praise from the New York Times for her "ethereal vocal music." Also in 1994 she founded the select women's choir, Viriditas Vocal Ensemble. She composed prolifically for this group as well as for Aurora Chorus and several of Szymko's best known early works were premiered by these two ensembles under her direction. With Viriditas (1994-2002) her mission was to provide an exceptional, eclectic choral experience for both singers and audience. Performances explored connections between music and ritual, invited unique collaborations, and were aimed at bringing down the "fourth wall" between performers and audience. With Viriditas, Szymko produced OPENINGS, an album of all original works. Several titles from this album were selected for publication by Santa Barbara Music Publishing (SBMP), beginning a decade long relationship with this premiere American publisher of contemporary choral literature. Two SBMP octavos have received multiple mainstage performances at National Conferences of the American Choral Director's Association(ACDA): It Takes a Village, which after 20 years remains a perennial best seller; and Nada te turbe, innovative as a bilingual setting of the famous prayer of Teresa of Avilá. Szymko is also proud to have presented sessions on her music at regional and national ACDA confereneces. However, most notable, her music has been presented on stage or in sessions at every ACDA National Conference since 2003.

Choral works by Joan Szymko can also be found in the catalogs of  Roger Dean Publishing, Oxford University Press, Walton Music, earthsongs, and Treble Clef Press. However, desiring to own the copyright to her own creative work, Szymko turned toward the independent composer/publisher model and in 2011 became a founding member of the Independent Music Publishers Collective (IMP).  Her website, JoanSzymko.com was inaugurated soon after.  Szymko continues to live and work in Portland. She served on the choral faculty at Portland State University (2013-15) and after 26 seasons she recently retired from leading Aurora Chorus, now serving this amazing community of women in an advisory role as Artistic Director emerita. As a visiting artist and clinician, she continues to workshop her music with choirs in a variety of educational and festival settings across the United States and abroad.

Joan Szymko has been commissioned by all manner of choral ensemble: professional, university, church, LGBTQ, children's and community choirs. Her first large-scale work for chorus and orchestra was a commission by Eugene Vocal Arts; she was tasked with both composing and creating the libretto for an oratorio focusing on the tragedy of Alzheimer's dementia, Shadow and Light, an Alzeimer's Journey. This seventy minute work for mezzo-soprano, tenor, soprano, SATB chorus and 30 piece chamber orchestra is a major new addition to the choral-orchestral repertoire. Its premiere in April 2016 by Eugene Concert Choir won an America Prize for the recording. The process of creating the oratorio was followed by AO Films. Their award winning documentary, The Story of Shadow and Light: Giving Voice to an Alzeimer's Story is available for viewing here.

  

Peace Window

Do Jump! Movement Theater Company,
"Peace Window"

In the 1980's Seattle was becoming a center for modern dance and Szymko was very drawn to this style of movement theater. As director of the Seattle Women's Ensemble, her most adventurous programming involved concert collaborations with dancer/choreographers Pat Graney and Llory Wilson. Szymko's first major choral-theater work was her collaboration with Wilson who choreographed a loving tribute to friends in the dance community lost to the AIDS epidemic to Szymko's "On Holding On (1989)—a ten minute a cappella choral piece set entirely to the words "hold on."  Joan carried her enthusiasm for the dance stage to Portland where she began her long fruitful relationship with director/choreographer, Robin Lane, founder of Do Jump! Movement Theater.

Since 1995, Szymko has composed much of the music for Robin Lane's aerial choreography; including scores used in three full length presentations as well as numerous repertory works. She performed this music with the company in Portland and on tour, including runs on Broadway, at the Kennedy Center and the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles. Early music composed for Do Jump! is featured on her CD of original works, “Openings.”

In the early 90's Szymko composed musical theater. She worked on three major projects: "Cradle and All," "Group" and "Abraham's Land." "Cradle and All," (1990, book & lyrics by Ellen Cooper) received full productions in Seattle, San Francisco and Indianapolis.  She remains interested in the form and in 2013 Joan was selected as a participant in the New Dramatist/Nautilus Music Theater Composer-Librettist Studio in New York. This intensive exploration of the collaborative process pushed her creative limits, as she composed five songs with five different playrights in ten days!

 

Music Composed for Do Jump! Movement Theater Company

  • At Such a Dizzy Height (“Peace Window”) Aaaah HA! (2011-12);  Portland and New York (New Victory Theater)
  • "Aria," (2009) Tiger Lilly and Sunny Lu; Echo Theater (Portland)
  • “Aaaah HA!” 006-08; Newmark Theater (Portland), Ordway Center for Performing Arts, St Paul, MN
  • "Openings," (150+ performances between 1995-2001) Echo Theater; New Victory Theater, NYC; Geffen Playhouse, LA
  • “¡Entusiasmo!” (2005-08) ¡Entusiasmo! Incidental instrumental music and "Sunrise." Newmark Theater, Portland, OR
  • “Fly", “Ah Ha!” “Braided Light,” (1996-2011, multiple) Repertory Works. Portland & on tour (multiple venues).

Musical Theater Productions
"Cradle and All” (1991) Two Acts, cast of 4; book-lyrics by Ellen Cooper.
Alice B. Theater (Seattle, 1990) and Theater Rhinoceros (San Francisco, 1991)

I am deeply committed to making choral art in my community. As our culture becomes more reliant on disembodied communication and as strident individualism is marketed with an almost religious fervor, I find great solace in weekly choral rehearsals. There, people from all walks of life come together to surrender themselves to the whole; they come for communion, hoping to perfect a unified sound and for the promise of a deeply exhilarating musical experience. It can be transformative. It is healing.

I approach the process of composing as that of "deep listening." I believe that as I compose, if I truly surrender myself—if I become at-one with the process, then I will create something of beauty that will resonate deeply with singer and listener, whatever the tone, character or meaning of the work.

My goal has always been to compose music that invites the audience "in" while challenging the notion that accessibility and musical integrity are incompatible concepts. One of the means to realizing this goal has been through collaboration; I have composed choral music to be performed with actors, poets, Taiko drummers, modern dancers, aerialists and accordion players. I have set texts by fourth graders and Pulitzer Prize winners, medieval mystics and contemporary poets. I employ words that delight, confront or inspire me; make me think, make me feel. I am particularly drawn to poems and texts that invoke divine grace, speak to the universal yearning for good and that nurture a compassionate heart. I desire to illuminate the texts, allowing my music to be a vehicle for the words. — Joan Szymko

 

 

"Joan Szymko holds a position of honor in the women’s choir realm, in part because of her plentiful and skillfully composed contributions to the women’s repertoire, numbering more than eighty works as of this writing. Numerous honor choirs have performed her music at the past five national ACDA conventions, as well as choirs selected for international competitions. In 2010 she was chosen to compose ACDA’s prestigious Raymond W. Brock Commission, for which she penned 'All Works of Love' for SATB choir."
CHORAL JOURNAL, December 2013, Excerpt from Feature Article written by Debra Spurgeon, DMA, Associate Professor of Choral Music, University of Mississippi-Oxford

"Szymko specializes in choral works of haunting beauty.”
— Willamette Week, Portland, Oregon

 

Peace Window, [was] accompanied by ethereal vocal music by Joan Szymko.”
The New York Times

“Fortunately Alan Hovhaness's 'Ave Maria' came along to ease the program out of its sleepy doldrums and Joan Szymko's excellent and incisive 'Nada te Turbe' finished the job of waking it up.”
The Washington Post

“The Milwaukee Choral Artists then took command with a set including a pair of striking and intense compositions by American composer Joan Szymko… “
Chicago Classical Review

“Joan Szymko has earned a reputation for setting interesting texts with skill and finesse...”
CHORAL JOURNAL

“Do Jump! is buoyed by Joan Szymko’s original music..."
Los Angeles Times

“Perhaps the most delightful work on the second half was a setting of bibulous words from a Horace Ode by Joan Szymko ... Rich choral textures were interrupted and enlivened by a sudden rhythmic groove from a tambourine as the title refrain 'Carpe Diem' was chanted.”
— Cleveland classical.com, 2011

“Joan Szymko has produced another winner ... and in so doing, has continued to provide opportunities for women’s choruses to stretch beyond the ordinary and the expected to the refreshing and powerful.”
CHORAL JOURNAL

"...'Pendulum' emerged as the best of the Tolerance Project's five selections, a triumph of creative writing for Joan Szymko."
Beverly Hills Outlook

"....there were some supreme high points as well. In this, Joan Szymko's 'Nada te turbe' and 'This We Know' were exemplary."
The Oregonian