James Jordan: The Musician's Spirit
Grammy-Nominated James Jordan is recognized in the musical community as one of the United States' leading conductors, writers, music psychologists and innovators in the field of choral music. He is an eminent author, conductor, and pedagogue –at Westminster Choir College of Rider University in Lawrenceville, New Jersey, where he is a Senior Conductor and where he directs The Westminster Williamson Voices a select ensemble whose repertoire, sound, and spirit James Jordan cultivates with what we could call a sacred care. He is also Co-Director of The Choral Institute at Oxford, now approaching its tenth year Anniversary in 2022 (Rider.edu/Oxford). He is also conductor and artistic director of the Philadelphia-based professional choir, The Same Stream whose recordings have garnered critical acclaim. (Thesamestreamchoir.com) He has championed the work of some 30 composers around the world including Paul Mealor, James Whitbourn, Jackson Hill, Thomas LaVoy, Sarah Rimkus and Sam Scheibe. He is editor of The Evoking Sound Choral Series and The Westminster Choral Series published by GIA Inc in Chicago with over 400 works in the catalog. Dr. Jordan also hosts a nationally syndicated program, Sounds Choral on WWFM.org, The Classical Network. He has also been a visiting professor, lecturer, and clinician at a number of conservatories and universities including the Curtis Institute around the world.
Since the publishing of his book The Musicians Soul in 1999, Jordan has written over 60 books under the GIA Publications label. His latest book, until recently that is, in his series of explorations of the Musician’s Spirit, is The Musician’s Being. His books on Chant and Chant Improvisation are considered as groundbreaking and a re re-shaping choral pedagogy. All his books can be found at GIAMUSIC.com.
The acclaimed Williamson Voices at Westminster Choir College, has recorded a dozen CD’s under Dr Jordan’s direction, received a Grammy Nomination for Annelies that garnered extensive critical acclaim that is based upon excerpts from the Diary of Anne Frank composed by James Whitbourn. His latest book, The Musician’s Empathy: Becoming Another will be published by GIA Music in Chicago July 1, 2021.
Here are some of the recordings we reference in the talk, all by the Westminster Williamson Voices, directed by James Jordan:
Serenity (we heard “Ubi caritas et amor”)
Silence Into Light (we heard Arvo Pärt — “Kanon Pokojanen: Prayer After the Canon”)