MATTHEW MELENDEZ BLEGEN
General Director
Matthew Melendez Blegen
used to make his living singing the praises of others. After graduating
at the top of his class from the country’s leading communications
school, he began a career as ad creative on Madison Avenue. Fifteen years
and about 3,000 miles later, he found himself in the technology industry
as a senior public relations and marketing executive at the height of
the 1990s technology boom.
Music was never far away though, and Matthew also performed regularly as a professional classical vocalist throughout the majority of his high tech career with organizations such as the New Jersey State Opera, New York Oratorio Society, William Hall Master Chorale, the Los Angeles Master Chorale, the Opera Orchestra of Los Angeles, and Portland Pro Musica, among others. Matthew has also performed as a studio musician on movie soundtracks and dozens of CDs, and sang professionally at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Portland.
In 2003 he was given the opportunity to study with world-renowned tenor Vinson Cole as part of the Master of Music program at the University of Washington, a program he completed magna cum laude in the Spring of 2006. Matthew has a passion for early music, and received praise for his coloratura skills from specialist soprano Ellen Hargis in her master class. Most recently he has been heard with Seattle's Tudor Choir, as a soloist in Bach’s Mass in B Minor in Meany Hall with the University of Washington Symphony, as L’horloge in Ravel’s opera L’Enfant et les sortilèges, as Guglielmo in Mozart’s Cosí fan tutte, and in an acclaimed solo song recital at Seattle’s Town Hall.
GARY D. CANNON
Director of Choral Music
The musical abilities and experiences of Gary
D. Cannon are exceptionally
broad, embracing conducting, singing, composing, teaching, and musicological
research.
Cannon is active as a choral conductor throughout the Seattle area, with an extensive repertoire ranging from chant to music of today. He is Director of Choral Music at the Annas Bay Music Festival, where he conducts the resident professional chamber choir. In six seasons as chorusmaster of the Northwest Mahler Festival, he has prepared major works by Mahler, Barber, Bruckner, and Vaughan Williams. Cannon has also been guest conductor of the Kirkland Choral Society and choir director at St. Thomas More Catholic Church in Lynnwood. He has conducted all of the major choral ensembles of the University of Washington, the Davis (California) Festival Singers, and the student vocal/instrumental ensemble Pulchritudina, which he founded. He has studied and sung with some of the world’s leading choral conductors, including Paul Hillier, Abraham Kaplan, Peter Phillips, Jeffrey Thomas, and Dale Warland.
As a tenor, Cannon’s recent solo performances include Mozart’s Requiem with Cantare Vocal Ensemble and the Rianier Symphony, Respighi's Laud to the Nativity with the Issaquah Chorale, Gounod's St. Cecilia Mass with the Eastside Symphony, and Mendelssohn's Walpurgisnacht at the Midsummer Musical Retreat in Walla Walla. Past performances also include some baritone roles, such as Vaughan Williams’s Dona nobis pacem and Fantasia on Christmas Carols, and Finzi's In terra pax. Cannon sings regularly with The Tudor Choir, and has performed on soundtracks for many films and video games.
Cannon taught music history and fundamental theory for two years at Whatcom Community College in Bellingham, where he received the 2006 Faculty Excellence Award, the college’s highest honor for adjunct faculty. His musicological research emphasizes twentieth-century British music; particularly noteworthy is his work as founder and webmaster of WilliamWalton.net, the premier website dedicated to the composer. Cannon also periodically dabbles in musical composition, especially vocal and chamber music. He holds degrees from the University of California, Davis (B.A. in music, 1999), and the University of Washington, Seattle (M.Mus. in choral conducting, 2003), where he currently pursues doctoral studies. His other interests include Antarctic history, the United Nations, Agatha Christie mysteries, historic atlases and almanacs, and an extensive classical CD collection. Cannon resides in Seattle, Washington.
JERROD WENDLAND
Director of Instrumental Music
Jerrod Wendland’s
unusually varied interests have imbued his pianism with a musicality,
the breadth and depth of which belie his twenty-nine years. He began
his musical studies in Milwaukee with Stephanie Jacobs, and continued
pre-college training with Carole Tafoya, Jane Allen, and Dr. John Schuster-Craig
at Webster University.
His acceptance to the prestigious Oberlin Conservatory allowed him to accelerate his musical studies, while also exposing him to an even broader diversity of insights and interests. Besides piano performance, he has studied history, theory, conducting and contemporary music; outside the conservatory, he studied philosophy, Latin, and ancient rhetoric, with an emphasis on memory techniques. While at Oberlin he assembled several chamber ensembles and accompanied a wide variety of instrumental and choral repertoire.
Since relocating to Seattle in 2001, he has studied theory and composition with Johnathan Bernard, John Rahn and Joël Durand, and was awarded a University of Washington assistantship which allowed him to teach theory and ear-training in a classroom setting, an experience which proved one of the abiding joys of his life. He has performed twice for the Seattle Composers Salon, and has accompanied many local musicians, and a bevy of students at the University (including winners of the Concerto Competition for two years running). His most recent performance was a recital last May at the Seattle Art Museum with mezzo-soprano Emily Greanleaf, singing and playing music by Alban Berg, Thomas Baker, Claude Debussy and Dominick Argento. Jerrod looks forward to pushing the boundaries of what musicians can and should do to bring their art to a wide and appreciative audience.
