Choral-Orchestral Repertoire

Jonathan D. Green is an award-winning composer of over 150 musical works and the author of eight reference books. He has conducted a wide variety of collegiate and church choirs and collegiate and regional orchestras. He is the president of Susquehanna University.David William Oertel is the Music Director and Conductor of the Starlight Symphony Orchestra (TX) and the Austin Philharmonic. He has also appeared as a guest conductor in venues from Houston, TX to St. Petersburg, Russia and Zlin, Czech Republic. Oertel has taught music in the public schools in Houston and has been on the faculty of High Point University (NC) and North Carolina A&T University. He has worked with youth orchestras, musical theatre and opera pit orchestras, concert orchestras as well as wind ensembles, jazz ensembles and silent film orchestras. Oertel holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro as well as a Masters degree in Applied Performance from the University of Houston. His undergraduate degree is from the University of North Texas. His notable conducting mentors include Robert Linder, David Daniels, Max Rudolf, Kirk Trevor, Hans Graf, Niklaus Wyss, Adrian Gnam and Franz Krager.

Highly Recommended: Bringing together the contents of six of Green's previously published guides (dating from 1994 to 2014, many reviewed in these pages), this volume provides descriptions of works for chorus and orchestra from Bach onward. Intended to assist conductors with selecting repertoire for performance, the entries (which are arranged alphabetically by composer and then by work) offer brief biographical information on the composers, followed by detailed information on the works—including duration, sources of texts, performing forces required, editions, recommended recordings and further readings, and notes on performance issues. Based on Green's own score study, the last are the real value of the guide. Green describes technical issues (for both singers and instrumentalists) that will need to be addressed in rehearsal, and he provides an assessment of the overall difficulty level of the piece.