Artistic Staff

Gary D. Cannon, Artistic Director

Gary D. Cannon is one of the Northwest's most dynamic choral personalities, active as a conductor, singer, composer, musicologist, and educator. In January 2008, he was appointed Artistic Director of the Cascadian Chorale. He has also been chorusmaster of the Northwest Mahler Festival since 2001 and choir director at Bethel Lutheran Church in Shoreline since 2007. Cannon has recently appeared as a guest conductor with the Vashon Island Chorale and Kirkland Choral Society. He conducted the Annas Bay Chamber Choir, a professional 16-voice ensemble, in its acclaimed inaugural season in the summer of 2006. He has also directed various choral ensembles at the University of Washington.

As a tenor, Cannon has appeared as a soloist with the Seattle Philharmonic, and the Auburn, Rainier, and Eastside Symphony Orchestras, in major works such as Mozart's Requiem, Gounod's St. Cecilia Mass, and P.D.Q. Bach's Iphigenia in Brooklyn. Cannon's recital repertoire ranges from Schubert songs to Puccini arias. Cannon also sings with The Tudor Choir and the Seattle Opera Chorus.

Cannon taught for two years at Whatcom Community College in Bellingham, where he received the 2006 Faculty Excellence Award, the college's highest faculty honor. His musicological research emphasizes twentieth-century British music; particularly noteworthy is his work as founder and webmaster of WilliamWalton.net. Cannon holds degrees from the University of California–Davis and the University of Washington, where he is currently researching a doctoral dissertation on the early life and works of William Walton. 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.

Jerrod Wendland, Accompanist

Jerrod Wendland is a graduate of the Oberlin Conservatory (2000), where he studied with Peter Takacs. He relocated to Seattle in 2001 in order to study music theory at the University of Washington. Since then, he has accompanied many artists in the Puget Sound area. He also helped to plan and develop the Annas Bay Music Festival, of which he was the Artistic Director from 2006 to 2007. At present, he is the interim music director for the Swedish Women's Choir and plays regularly at the Temple Beth Am and with the tango quartet Tangabrazo. Last June he participated in the Vancouver International Song Institute.

Bern Herbolsheimer, Composer in Residence

Bern Herbolsheimer has received recognition throughout the United States and Europe for over 300 works ranging from ballet to symphonic, operatic, chamber and choral works. His numerous major commissions and premieres have included ballets for the Frankfurt Ballet, the Atlanta Ballet, the Pacific Northwest Ballet, and the Eugene (Oregon) Ballet. His first opera, Aria da Capo, won first prize in the National Opera Association's New Opera Competition. Mark Me Twain, his second opera, was commissioned and premiered in 1993 by the Nevada Opera for its Silver Anniversary season.

His Symphony #1 was premiered by the Florida Symphony under conductor Kenneth Jin, and other orchestral music has been premiered by the Seattle Symphony, Northwest Symphony Orchestra, and Music Today in New York under the direction of Gerard Schwarz. His vocal and choral music has been performed in Portugal, Spain, Germany, France, Italy, Australia, South America, Canada, Norway, Russia, Hungary, Japan, and throughout the United States.

A frequent award winner, Mr. Herbolsheimer has been Seattle Artist-in-Residence (Seattle Arts Commission), Washington State Composer of the Year (WSMTA), and winner of the Melodious Accord Choral Music Competition (Te Deum), in addition to the National Opera Association's New Opera Competition (Aria da Capo). He has also been the recipient of composition commissions from the National Endowment for the Arts (Symphony #1), Chamber Music America (Tanguy Music), the Seattle Symphony (In Mysterium Tremendum), and from numerous local organizations such as Seattle Men's Chorus, St. James Cathedral, Opus 7, Seattle Pro Musica and the Cascadian Chorale. His works also appear on recent CDs by St. James Cathedral, Opus 7, Paul Taub, Tony Brown and Lisa Bergman.

As pianist Mr. Herbolsheimer has performed as accompanist at the Bergen International Music Festival, the Schloss Elmau Festival, and on concert series for Columbia Artists, Saint Martin's Abbey, the Spanish Institute, the Goethe Institute, the American Opera Festival of the Sierra, Estoril/Cacais Concerts in Portugal, the Tatarstan Opera in Kazan, Battelle Institute, the Ojai Music Festival, and regularly in the Western Washington area.

Mr. Herbolsheimer also serves on the music faculty of Seattle's Cornish College, where he teaches composition-related classes and holds a private studio, and the University of Washington, where he teaches graduate classes in the voice program. At the end of the 2000-2001 school year he was selected as the Outstanding Teacher of Music at Cornish College.

In his capacity as Composer-in-Residence of the Cascadian Chorale he has served as artistic advisor to the board and staff, as one of the administrators and founders of our Cascadian Prize Choral Composition Contest, as frequent performer with both the Cascadian Chorale and Singers, and as composer of new works such his Seven Last Words of Christ on the Cross (1997), Beati Quorum Via (1996), Stille Nacht (2000), and Three French Carols (1999).