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René Clausen's has served as conductor of The Concordia
Choir of Concordia College, Moorhead, Minnesota since 1986. Additionally,
he is the artistic director of the award-winning Concordia Christmas
Concerts, which are frequently featured by PBS stations throughout
the nation.
René Clausen is a well-known composer. His compositional
style is varied and eclectic, ranging from works appropriate for high
school and church choirs to more technically-demanding compositions
for college and professional choirs. Interested in composing for
various media, Clausen's compositional interests include works for
the stage, solo voice, film and video composition, choral/orchestral
compositions and arrangements, as well as works for orchestra and
wind ensemble. He regularly composes on a commission basis, and is a
frequent guest conductor and composer-in-residence on a national
basis.
All of René Clausen's choral compositions and arrangements
are published exclusively through Mark Foster Music Company (a division
of Shawnee Press) in The René Clausen Choral Series.
In addition to choral conducting, Dr. Clausen is becoming
increasingly well-known as a guest conductor of the major choral/
orchestral literature, in addition to orchestral conducting. At
Carnegie Hall he has guest conducted the Brahms Ein
deutsches Requiem, Mozart Requiem and Mass in C
minor, together with the New York premiere of three of his own
works, Gloria (in three movements), Whispers of Heavenly
Death, with text by Walt Whitman, and Communion, with text
by George Macdonald. Other major choral/orchestral works he has
conducted include the Poulenc Gloria, Vaughan
Williams Hodie, Beethoven Mass in C Major
and Choral Fantasy, and Fauré
Requiem..
In the summer of 1998, Dr. Clausen established the first René
Clausen Choral School held on the campus of Concordia College,
Moorhead, Minnesota, in which sixty-three participants from twenty-seven
states participated. Much more than a reading workshop, the choral
school is an intensive, five-day program for choral conductors
focusing on conducting and rehearsal technique, performance practice
issues, elements of choral ensemble, tonal development, as well
as daily reading sessions of new music. The eighth annual René
Clausen Choral School will be held at Concordia College in
Moorhead, Minnesota, July 24-28, 2005.
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