Vance George is in his 22nd year as director of the San Francisco Symphony Chorus. Under his leadership, the 31 year-old ensemble has been hailed as one of the finest symphony choruses in the world. Mr. George has accepted three Grammy awards on behalf of the Orchestra and Chorus: for Best Choral-Orchestral Recording of 1992, for Orff’s Carmina burana; for Best Choral-Orchestral Recording of 1995, for Brahms’s German Requiem; and this past February for Best Classical Album of the Year, for a collection of three Stravinsky ballet scores, Le Sacre du printemps, The Firebird, and Persephone. The Chorus may also be heard on London Records in Grieg’s incidental music for Peer Gynt, the Grammy-nominated Mahler Symphony No. 2, and a collection of choral works by Brahms. On RCA Red Seal, the Chorus is featured with the SFS under Michael Tilson Thomas’s direction in Mahler’s Das klagende Lied, selections from Berlioz’s Lélio, and Stravinsky’s Persephone. The Grammy-nominated Christmas by the Bay, released in 1998 on Delos, features Mr. George and the Chorus in a holiday album. In March 2001, Delos Records released the Chorus’s second solo disc, Voices 1900/2000 leading the ensemble on a choral journey through the 20 th century. The Chorus has also recorded John Adams’s Harmonium twice, most recently for the Nonesuch label, with Adams conducting. The Chorus can be heard on the soundtracks of the films Amadeus, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, and Godfather II. In February 2001, the Chorus made its Carnegie Hall debut in two sold-out performances of Mahler and Stravinsky with MTT and the SFS.

Deborah A. Mello, founding director of the Children's Chorus of Sussex County, is the recipient of the Master Teacher Award from the New Jersey Music Educators Association, the New Jersey Governor's Award for Arts in Education, and the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra Master Teacher Collaborative Award, sponsored by the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation.

As a member of the American Choral Directors Association, Debbie has served on the Repertoire & Standards Committee for Children's Choirs as New Jersey State Chair, Eastern Division Chair and three years as National Chair. A recipient of the Artist-Teacher certificate from the Choral Music Education courses founded by Doreen Rao, Deborah has been a Teaching Associate in the CME courses taught in the United States and in Europe, including England, Sweden, Scotland, Ireland and most recently in Cardiff, Wales.

She has conducted several regional and honor choirs in various states including New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, Maine and Kentucky. In addition to conducting, Deborah has presented numerous workshops on elementary music education, children's choirs, choral repertoire for children, and choral conducting for the New Jersey Music Educators, New York American Choral Directors Association, Louisiana Choral Directors Association, Music Educators National Conference, National American Choral Directors Association and Oberlin Conservatory.

In collaboration with New Jersey composer, Jill Gallina, Debbie has written All-American Sing-Along Songs, a collection of patriotic songs and companion lesson plans, and For the Boys, a collection of songs that boys love to sing with background information and companion lesson plans. She has written articles that have been published in the New Jersey Music Educators Journal, the Eastern Division American Choral Directors Newsletter, The Choral Journal and most recently in a national publication of the Music Educators National Conference.

J. Donald Dumpson is active as an educator, master keyboardist, conductor, vocal coach, composer and arranger as well as a sought-after clinician and production administrator. A member of the sacred music faculty and conductor of Westminster Jubilee Singers at Westminster, he is also president of the entertainment production company J. Donald Dumpson Productions. 

Mr. Dumpson has been artistic director of the Performers’ Workshop at the Community College of Philadelphia, director of the Concert Choir at the Philadelphia High School for the Creative and Performing Arts, and conductor of the Concert Choir at Cheyney University. Currently he is minister of music at Bright Hope Baptist Church, whose Bright Hope Celestial Choir he has taken from the church sanctuary to television and Broadway.

He has guest-conducted the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra (NJSO) and Chorus to critical acclaim. He has also served as a member of the production team for the syndicated television special "An Evening of Stars" and assisted with the choral preparation of the Opera Company of Philadelphia’s June 2001 production of Porgy and Bess.

Donald Dumpson has prepared a special chorus for Christmas performances at Carnegie Hall featuring soprano Barbara Hendricks with conductor Skitch Henderson and the New York Pops Orchestra. He also served as chorus master for the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra’s world-premiere performances of Hannibal Lokumbe’s God, Mississippi, and a Man Called Evers, performed by the NJSO Community Chorus and Westminster Jubilee Singers.

Mr. Dumpson was co-producer for the national telecast of Black Entertainment Television’s First Annual African-American Sacred Music Festival. He also prepared the chorus for the Marian Anderson Award concert with conductor Julius Rudel. Mr. Dumpson received rave reviews when he prepared a chorus for Porgy and Bess with The Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Bobby McFerrin. Former music director of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra’s Community Chorus, Mr. Dumpson made his debut with Zdenek Macal, preparing the chorus for the New Jersey Symphony’s performances of Mahler’s Symphony No. 2.

Mr. Dumpson earned a Master of Music from Temple University. He has done pre-doctoral studies at Peabody Conservatory of Music, Morgan State University, New York University, Philadelphia University of the Arts and University of California-Los Angeles.

For more information, call

Dawn Oulton, Conference Coordinator,

at 978-867-4429,
or email her at workshops@gordon.edu