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GRINNELL SINGERS
John Rommereim, director

The members of the Grinnell Singers are students from Grinnell College, a select liberal arts institution situated in Grinnell, Iowa. The singers have distinguished themselves as an ensemble that performs innovative and adventurous repertoire from a wide variety of choral traditions. In addtion to works drawn from the standard repertoire, their concerts always include distinguished choral works that are little known or previously unavailable.

The singers have frequently performed baroque choral works with a professional period-instrument ensemble, the Baroque Orchestra of Iowa, which was founded in 1991 by John Rommereim. In 1996 they performed with the Des Moines Symphony in the premiere of a work by Grinnell professor Jonathan Chenette written to commemorate the sesquicentennial of Grinnell College and the State of Iowa. Their spring tour included performances in Chicago, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Washington D.C., and Philidelphia, culminating in a Carnegie Hall performance in New York. In 1993, the singers were honored to receive an invitation to perform at the North-Central convention of the Americal Choral Director's Association.

Although the singers repertoire is wide-ranging, they have specialized somewhat in the performance of Russian choral music. In 1992, along with the Grinnell Community Chorus, they produced a compact disc recording of Russian choral Music entitled Na Zemli Mir (Peace on Earth). this CD included premiere recordings of several works by Alexandre Kastalsky. this recording project also entailed the production of an edition of Kastalsky's work. During the last several years, the singers have frequently performed pieces by 20th century Russian composers G. Sviridov, V. Kalistratov, R. Shchedrin, and V. Shebalin, and have served as vigorous advocates of this valuable, but little-known, repertoire.