Posted May 25, 2026
By Jonathan Raabe
On Saturday, May 30, three of Colorado’s finest choirs will share a single stage for the inaugural Colorado New Music Festival. Ars Nova Singers, Kantorei, and St. Martin’s Chamber Choir each bring a solo set of new and recent works, then join together as a single ensemble of more than sixty voices for the world premiere of Terry Schlenker’s The Bird of Vision, commissioned by Ars Nova Singers in celebration of our 40th anniversary.
The festival features six Colorado composers across the evening, two works from Grammy winner Christopher Tin’s newly released Song Offerings album, and two world premieres. Three artistic directors. One room. One night.
What follows is something like a pre-concert master class — each director, in their own words, on the music they are bringing to this concert and how they came to choose it. Watch the videos below, then come hear it live.
Tom Morgan, Artistic Director — Ars Nova Singers
Tom Morgan founded Ars Nova Singers in 1986 and has led the ensemble through forty seasons of choral exploration. For this festival, Morgan has curated a set centered on Colorado voices: two works by Paul Fowler — The Poet Wonders (2026) and Yet Another Layer (2016) — alongside Jeff Nytch’s And the Tree Do Moan (2025) and Leah Porter Tracy’s I come to the Water (2026). Threaded through them is Steven Stucky’s Eyesight (2009), a quieter pause inside an otherwise local conversation.
[Director interview video — coming soon]
Joel M. Rinsema, Artistic Director — Kantorei
Joel Rinsema has led Denver-based Kantorei since 2014, only the second conductor in the ensemble’s history. Under his direction the choir has tripled its scope and built a reputation for ambitious commissioning and recording. Kantorei opens and closes its set with two works from Christopher Tin’s Song Offerings — This Rhythm and Stream of Life, both settings of Tagore — accompanied by pianist Alicia Rigsby. Between them lies a contemplative arc: Arvo Pärt’s Nunc dimittis (with soprano Mo Bailey), Marques L.A. Garrett’s setting of James Weldon Johnson’s My Heart Be Brave, and Terry Schlenker’s Green Pastures, Still Waters, the Psalm 23 setting that Kantorei itself world-premiered in March 2025.
The two Tin works are drawn from his Song Offerings album, released on Decca Gold in November 2025, commissioned for Kantorei in memory of Allison N. Roman. Tin is the Grammy-winning composer of “Baba Yetu.”
[Director interview video — coming soon]
Timothy J. Krueger, Founder and Artistic Director — St. Martin’s Chamber Choir
Timothy J. Krueger founded St. Martin’s Chamber Choir in 1994; in its thirty-second season it remains Colorado’s only year-round, fully professional choir. Krueger’s set for the festival leans into the contemporary. It opens with his own To Mary, war remembered (2012), a setting of Hildegard Guttendorfer’s text, and closes with two world premieres by Colorado composer Bryan Grosbach: We Reach (with F. Taylor Atkinson) and The Boundless Deep, with baritone Matt La Cava. Between them, Conducting Intern Nora Cullinan leads Cecilia McDowall’s Such Splendor (2024) with soprano Laura Tribby.
[Director interview video — coming soon]
The Bird of Vision
The evening’s centerpiece — and the only piece on the program performed by all three choirs together — is the world premiere of Terry Schlenker’s The Bird of Vision, commissioned by Ars Nova Singers in celebration of our 40th anniversary.
The text is drawn from Rumi, the 13th-century Sufi mystic whose image of a soul-bird crossing between worlds gives Schlenker’s setting both its title and its arc. Tom Morgan conducts, with two soloists drawn from across the festival: soprano McKenzie Laun of St. Martin’s Chamber Choir and tenor Seth O’Kegley of Kantorei.
Three Colorado choirs are rarely on the same stage at the same time. Three Colorado choirs performing a new work written for this room, this anniversary, this moment — that is the night.
The Colorado New Music Festival takes place Saturday, May 30, 2026, at 7:30 PM, at Central Presbyterian Church, 1660 N Sherman St., Denver. Parking is available at the Wells Fargo Garage half a block north of the church. Tickets and full program details are available on our website.
We hope you’ll join us.