"Band With Choral Colors"

Vivace! Cathedrals Choir is our flagship mixed-voice ensemble comprised of secondary students and selected adult mentors. This advanced group prepares a wide range of challenging choral repertoire. Vivace! Cathedrals enjoys a variety of performance opportunities throughout the year. Past events have taken this group to various locations throughout the Pacific Northwest, as well as other venues around the United States. In addition, the Cathedrals Choir was one of a handful of vocal ensembles selected to participate in an international tour of Austria and Hungary in the summer of 2006.

About their Director of Music: Andrea S Klouse

Andrea Klouse is an internationally acclaimed composer, conductor, educational clinician, and 30-year veteran teacher in Washington State schools. Klouse earned her Bachelor of Arts degree, magna cum laude, in Violin/Voice Performance and Music Education. Currently, Klouse teaches at the brand-new Graham-Kapowsin High School in the Bethel School District near Tacoma, Washington, just northwest of beautiful Mount Rainier.

Klouse was named 2005 Bethel School District Teacher of the Year, 2003 Pierce County Arts Commission “Margaret K. Williams Award for Excellence in Education,” and “Outstanding Music Educator” at the Washington Music Educators Association Conference. Klouse’s newest choral composition, published by Alliance Publishing Company, is called "I Hear Sweet Music.” It was commissioned by Washington Music Educators Association for the 2004 All-State Choir.

Klouse has conducted and performed in International festivals including: All-American Youth in Concert (Italy, Austria), Kathaumixw 1998 (Canada), Vesprehm "Vivace" Festival 2000 (Germany, Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary), Idaho International Choral Festival 2001 (U.S.).

Klouse is an active adjudicator and presenter at educational clinics, workshops and professional reading sessions. She has directed numerous All-State and Regional festival choirs around the United States.

Select Performance/Guest Conductor Venues

1990 All-State Featured Group Performance, Inaugural “Arts Time” Washington
1995 Kathaumixw International Choral Festival, BC;
1996 Georgia All State Guest Conductor;
1997 American Choral Directors Conference, WA
1998 Performance Group to Idaho International Choral Festival;
Klouse was named “Outstanding Educator” by WMEA;
1999 Vivace! International Choral Festival, Hungary and concert tour to Germany, Prague, and the Czech Republic
1999 Formation of the Vivace! Choral Program “in residence” with Bethel School District at Frontier Junior High: Vivace Kids, Vivace Mixed and Vivace! Consort Choirs
2000 FJH Concert Choir, WMEA All State Performance Group (Klouse also a session presenter)
2000 Georgia All State Guest Conductor.
2001 Vivace! Kids Camp, Vivace! “Cathedrals of WA” Camp and Concert Tour inaugural year.
2002 Oregon All State Choir, Guest Conductor
2002 WMEA All State (Klouse session presenter);
2002 FJH Consecutive Winner of the Best in the North West Choral Festival, Portland
2003 FJH Concert/Choir and Vivace Invited to Perform at the Kansas Music Educators Assn. Vivace Treble Choir performed with the Tacoma Symphony Orchestra and Choir Honegger’s “Une Cantate de Noel” with Central Washington University in “Star Child” by George Crumb in Seattle’s Benaroya Concert Hall.
2003 Vivace! Mixed Choir performed Schubert’s Mass in G with orchestra at the Sumner Performing Arts Center
2003 Vivace Cathedrals Choir performed in Cathedrals from Seattle to San Francisco
Most recently, Andrea was named recipient of the 2003 Pierce County Arts Commission’s Margaret K. Williams Arts Award for Excellence in the Arts
2004 WMEA commissioned a work from Andrea for performance in the WMEA All State: “I Hear Sweet Music.”
Summer 2004: Vivace! Cathedrals Choir performed at the National Cathedral, the National Shrine of the Basilica, the White House, the Holocaust Museum and other sites in Washington DC; was headline choir at the Oregon Bach festival; Mt Angel Abbey Bach Festival.
2005 Bethel School District Teacher of the Year
2005 Alabama All-State Conference Guest Conductor of SSA Choir; Birmingham Alabama:

Looking Forward: 2005 WMEA Elementary All-State Choir, March 12th.

Recent Andrea Klouse Choral works published and established as keynote performance pieces in education:

Prayer of the Children (Warner Chappell)

Song for a Russian Child (Hal Leonard)

Kyrie (Hal Leonard)

Who Will Fight No More Forever (Based on Chief Joesph's Surrender Speech) (Hal Leonard)

I Leave You With a Song (Warner Chappell)

How Will I Go Without Ye? (Hal Leonard)

"I Hear Sweet Music," was commissioned by Washington Music Educators Association for the 2004 All State Choir. World premiere performance was 2/14/04 (to be published by Alliance Publishing Co).

About the Tacoma Concert Band:
The Tacoma Concert Band was founded in 1981 by Robert Musser, who, at that time, was Director of Bands and Professor of Music at the University of Puget Sound, and principal oboe in the Tacoma Symphony Orchestra. Maestro Musser, who has served as conductor and music director since the band’s inception, invited some of the area’s finest woodwind, brass and percussion players to form the ensemble. Every one of these invited accepted the invitation, and with full instrumentation the ensemble met for the first rehearsal at the University of Puget Sound on a Wednesday in September of 1981. The band played its first concert November 11th, 1981, in the Stadium High School auditorium. For the first five seasons the band rehearsed at the University of Puget Sound and performed home concerts at Stadium High School.

On April 4th, 1986, the Tacoma Concert Band played its first “Sousa” concert (a concert in the style of the John Philip Sousa band) at the Pantages Theater, and beginning that fall, it moved its regular season concerts to the Pantages Theater. The band performed its next Sousa Concert in 1994, and since then, due to popular demand, it has programmed a Sousa concert every other year (and now performs each twice). In 1996, the band played a second performance of the concert in the Sumner Performing Arts Center and in 2006, it played its second performance in Olympia at the Washington Center for the Performing Arts.

Over the past 28 years the band has played concerts at many locations throughout the Puget Sound area. It was honored to perform for the Western International Band Clinic; Northwest Music Educators National Conference; Northwest College Band Directors National Association; Washington Music Educators Association: EXPO 1986 in Vancouver, British Columbia; and Seattle Symphony’s ‘Day of Music’ at Benaroya Hall. The band also played for the 100th anniversaries of Fort Warden in Port Townsend and Point Defiance Park in Tacoma. In 2007 the Tacoma Concert Band proudly represented Tacoma in the 21st Festival Des Anches D’Azur festival in La Croix Valmer, France.

The band has received awards for excellence from the Pierce County Arts Commission and the Tacoma Arts Commission. In 1989, the Tacoma Concert Band was presented the Sudler Scroll of the John Philip Sousa Foundation of Washington D.C. North America’s most prestigious award for community concert bands, the Sudler Scroll is awarded to bands that have demonstrated exceptionally high standards of musical excellence. The Tacoma Concert Band was honored as only the third band in North America to receive this award.

The Tacoma Concert Band has released four compact disc and three cassette recordings. KING-FM has played its recordings a number of times, and the band was included on their 1998 CD “Seattle’s Most Wanted.”

Beginning in 1990, the band began its Student Soloist Competition, inviting outstanding high school students to compete for the opportunity to perform a solo with the band at one of its season concerts. This annual tradition continues today. The winner of the first solo contest was Jason Gilliam, a euphonium player from Foss High School in Tacoma. Jason is now a regular member of the Tacoma Concert Band and has often been featured as soloist with the band. In 2005 the Tacoma Concert Band began a new tradition in its continuing support of school music programs, inviting selected high school band musicians to “sit in” with the band for a part of one of its concerts.

The commissioning of new works for the concert band is a commitment of the Tacoma Concert Band. The band has commissioned and premiered “A Sea of Glass Mingled with Fire” (1997) by Robert Jager; “Praises” (2001) by David Holsinger; “Concerto for Piccolo and Wind Orchestra” (2002) by Bruce Broughton as arranged by Randol Bass; “Harp Concertino” (2004) by Kevin Kasak; and for the band’s 25th Anniversary “Northwest Passages” (2006) by Aldo Forte; and “Northwest Focus” (2007) by Robert Hutchinson.

For the past few years, the Tacoma Concert Band, under the sponsorship of the Tacoma Philharmonic, has provided educational children’s concerts for Tacoma area grade children. These concerts, held at the Pantages Theater, have been very successful and it is hoped that this collaboration will continue in the future.

The Tacoma Concert Band currently performs a season of four concerts at the Pantages Theater in Tacoma and occasionally at other venues. It also performs a summer series of free concerts in area parks. The Tacoma Concert Band plans to continue to record and release compact discs, commission new works for band, feature great soloist, and explore the possibilities of performing additional concerts in different venues both in the Puget Sound area and elsewhere. The band’s mission, to provide an outstanding performance opportunity for local musicians, support music in our schools, and enrich the cultural environment of the Tacoma area, has clearly been met.

A special “Thank You” to this season’s sponsors: ArtsFund, Ben B. Cheney Foundation, Washington State Arts Commission, the forest Foundation, Columbia Bank, Classical KING FM 98.1, City of Tacoma Arts Commission and the Agnes J. Waterhouse Endowment Fund of the Greater Tacoma Community Foundation.