We're sad it's over but we're looking forward to 2007!
VOCI – Voices of Canton
Directed by Dr. Sam Gordon
For over sixty-five spectacular seasons, VOCI has been performing opera, operettas, musicals, major choral works, madrigals and musical revues for audiences of greater Canton. Originally founded in 1939 as the Canton Civic Opera, the organization has since broadened its horizons to include different musical genres. The name VOCI – Voices of Canton was chosen to reflect what the group now encompasses.
With over 80 singing members, the group rehearses at the Canton Cultural Center for the Arts. Their purpose, mission and vision is to be the premier organization engaging adults in the performance of excellent choral music and to improve the quality of life in Canton, other regions of the United States and abroad through the performance of various vocal music.
In 1997 Dr. Samuel Gordon assumed the directorship of the group. Under his direction, area audiences have been treated to numerous outstanding concerts of sacred and secular music. Great acclaim was showered on the group during its 2004 tour to Italy, and they were invited to attend the International Schubert Festival in Austria in 2005.
Dr. Samuel Gordon is Director of Choral Studies and Professor of Music at the University of Akron where he leads the program in choral conducting. A graduate of The Indiana University School of Music with highest honors, he received his master's degree in conducting and his doctorate in voice performance from that institution.
Dr. Gordon is a member of the Vocal Arts Quartet, a four-voice chamber ensemble in residence at The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. He has soloed with major orchestras including The National Symphony, The Baltimore Symphony, The Kansas City Philharmonic, The El Paso Symphony, and The National Gallery Orchestra. As a conductor, Dr. Gordon is the recipient of the Fiat Conducting Prize. He has won first prizes at the Concorso Polifonico Internazionale "Guido d'Arezzo," in Italy, The Royal National Eisteddfed in Wales (the first American to win this competition), and The International Eisteddfad (Llangollen, Wales). In 1985, the city of Cadiz, Spain presented him with the Trimillenial Medal for his contributions to Spanish-American cultural relations when he conducted a concert honoring Manuel da Falla who was born in Cadiz. That same year the city of Oviedo gave him the Bronze Medal in recognition of his heralded performance in the Cathedral of San Francisco. Recently he conducted the Taiwan Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus in a performance of Mozart's Coronation Mass. He has also been guest conductor for the Philadelphia Ballet Orchestra, The Maryland Festival Orchestra, The Mid-America Singers, and The Mendelssohn Club of Philadelphia. He has led workshops, clinics and festival choirs in thirty-eight states. A member of international adjudication panels, he has judged choral events for the Festival of the Americas in Nassau, Bahamas and the Angelo International Festival in Coventry, England. He is the new Artistic Director of Corofest Umbria, a choral festival that takes place in June and July, 2001 in six Umbrian cities in Italy.
He is a recording artist for Koch International Classics and his professional choral ensemble known as Singers Companye was recently featured on the Telarc CD, The Big Sound with Eric Kunzel and the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra. He has prepared world premiers for the St. Louis Symphony with Leonard Slatkin and Walter Susskind, the Kansas City Philharmonic with Hans Schwieger (Meyer Kupferman's Comicus Americanus) and with the same orchestra under Jorge Nestor, The Maryland Orchestra with Robert Gerle, the Pittsburgh Symphony with Sergiu Commissiona, the Baltimore Symphony with Sergiu Commissiona, the Bridgeport Symphony with Gustav Meier, and with Hartford Opera under the baton of Saul Lilienstein for two summer seasons of opera.
We as members of the Music at the Farmstead Volunteer Committee would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your help in making our 3rd Annual Summer Concert Series a success. Without your continued support and love of music, the series would not be the success that it is. Your contributions really do make a difference and you should be proud to live in a community that is able to put on great entertainment at such a unique and historic venue.
Summer evenings in the beautiful Cuyahoga Valley are hard to beat. But they become truly memorable when you attend Music at the Farmstead, a unique three-part concert series of quality music and entertainment. There is no better way to spend these special and intimate evenings than with friends and loved ones.
