During mid-March, Ēriks will be composer-in-residence at Capital University in Columbus, Ohio and Bemidji State University in Minnesota, leading workshops and rehearsals with choral and conducting students and their teachers. Ēriks will attend Capital University’s Annual Young Choral Artists Festival, which will include a performance of his recent work Longing. Based on poetry by Paul Laurence Dunbar, Longing was commissioned for the Capital University Chapel Choir, and was premiered at the 2018 Central & North Central ACDA Conference in Chicago. At Bemidji State, more than 150 high school students from across Minnesota will gather for the Department of Music’s annual choral festival, including the Brainerd HS A Cappella Choir, the Princeton HS Concert Choir, and the Bemidji Choir. The concluding concert will feature Ēriks’ works Who Can Sail Without the Wind and Trees.
Early April, Ēriks will be back in the US, visiting Choir of the West and director Richard Nance at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington state for the recording sessions of a new all–Ešenvalds album. He will also stay at the University of Richmond, Virginia for a residency including the premiere of his new work The Woman and Her Bear, which will be performed by the university’s choirs, four-time Grammy Award winning instrumental ensemble Eighth Blackbird and conductor Jeffrey Riehl.
Photo: bemidjistate.edu