Class Notes - September 2016

Class of 2011

Christopher (Kris) McCormick’ 11, is a 2016 Maryland Wind Festival Composer-in-Residence, is a composer, baritone, conductor and chronic improviser. McCormick has composed works for film, opera, orchestra, wind ensembles including music for young performers, jazz ensembles, electronic and electro-acoustic music, chamber music, and solo repertoire. His opera In a Grove, premiered in March 2015 and conducted by the composer, adapts Akutugawa's short story of the same name into an opera told through seven testimonies in a murder trial, accompanied by images and film created specifically for the production. In his first film score, for Shipwrecked under wasted tables by Sean Kiely ’11, Christopher performed, recorded and produced the music as well as being deeply involved in the conceptualization, direction, and sound design of the film.

Christopher has received commissions from the highSCORE music festival, the Maryland Wind Festival, Rhymes with Opera, and many solo performers and small ensembles. He is currently composing 'Graduation', a song cycle of texts on getting old by living writers Anthony Santulli and Brian Alvarado, and is working with artists and animators to release 'In a Grove' into a short animated film. Christopher holds a Bachelor of Music in music composition from Susquehanna University, and is currently pursuing a Master of Music in Composition from the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins, where he studies with Pulitzer prize-winning composer Kevin Puts.

Class of 1991

Doug Herbek '91 recently finished a year and a half living at New Camaldoli Hermitage, a Roman Catholic monastic community on the central coast of California. After discerning that he felt called by God elsewhere, he relocated from the reformed Benedictine community. Since then he's been re-immersing himself in life at Catholic Worker Houses in California, which he has been immensely enjoying.

In Memoriam

Steve Bergen, Faculty, of New York City, NY, April 2016
Sharyn Smigowski Panagides ‘75, of Trinity, FL, August 2016

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