Document text
Rogue Valley Chorale enters its 50th season with a new music director By Buffy Pollock Updated: Aug 30, 2022 09:14 AM A A Lynn Sjolund, founder of the Rogue Valley Chorale, left, and Jerron Jorgensen, the new music director of the Rogue Valley Chorale, at the Craterian Theater in Medford. [Jamie Lusch / Mail Tribune] The Rogue Valley Chorale will celebrate its 50th year with a full concert season and a brand new music director, Jerron Jorgensen. A South Dakota native, the 34-year-old Jorgensen moved recently from South Carolina, but he’s studied and conducted around the country. Jorgensen completed his undergraduate degree at Arizona State, where he met his wife, and his doctorate at the University of Hartford before spending five years conducting music in South Carolina. Jorgensen said his move to the Rogue Valley was prompted by a job offer to become director of chorale and vocal studies for Southern Oregon University. He was almost immediately recruited to apply for the position with the Rogue Valley Chorale. “That job is actually what brought me to this area. Throughout the interview process ... people on the search committee said, ‘Oh, by the way, we’ve heard that the Rogue Valley Chorale will be doing a search here pretty soon,” Jorgensen said. Jorgensen said he immediately felt at home in Southern Oregon. “I had lived in the Midwest, Southwest, Northeast and the Southeast. I figured there was one more corner of the country I needed to check off the list,” Jorgensen said. “But I think, honestly, this is it. We’re really loving it here, and we don’t want to live anywhere else. It’s been really great.” Made up of the original adult group and three youth choruses, the Rogue Valley Chorale Association has had only four artistic directors in its five-decade history. Meeting last week with founder and conductor emeritus Lynn Sjolund, Jorgensen was eager to kick off the chorale’s 50th season. Sjolund served as artistic director from 1973 until 2013, presenting around the country and even touring Europe seven times with the chorale and playing at Carnegie Hall. A former Medford School District teacher who served as head of a slew of regional and national chorale organizations, Sjolund was all smiles as he greeted the association’s newest leader. When he set out almost 50 years ago, Sjolund said he never envisioned it enduring for a half a century. Sjolund said he started the group at the urging of a group of “founding mothers” who had been singers in high school chorale groups and wanted to continue. “I told them, ‘OK, if you’ll do the dirty work and take care of the scheduling and the programs and publicity, all those things, we will give it a try. And it worked out.” Sjolund, who was also the founding director of the Craterian Theater, marveled at the chorale roster, growing from a few dozen to more than 170 singers ranging in age from childhood to 80 plus. Brad Nelson, executive director for the Rogue Valley Chorale Association, said an air of excitement had come about with the selection of Jorgensen to lead the chorale. “Jerron brings a new energy and excitement that I think will appeal to our singers on a lot of levels,” Nelson said. “Watching him, during some of the first auditions with new folks, and with all our adult singers individually, was really great. I think we found a wonderful fit.” Directors young and old agreed to a certain connection between conductor and singer. Said Sjolund, “Directing a chorus is a very personal kind of thing and you want to develop that esprit de corps … that has to do with a sharing of yourself.” Jorgensen said it was an honor to serve as just the fourth director in five decades for such a large regional group of singers. “When you’re conducting a band or an orchestra, you’re conducting a group of people who have an instrument in front of them, between you and the person playing it. And their instrument is an external instrument,” he said. “But when you’re conducting a group of singers, the instrument you’re conducting is the person ... and it’s a really special bond that you develop. For singers, everyone’s instrument is highly personal. Conducting, in that sense, is both an incredible privilege and a great responsibility. It changes me and, I think, the members of the ensemble, in the way that their voices and breathing line up. It’s a connection that cannot be created in any other form, so that’s very special.” Jorgensen said recent auditions had been energizing, and he was eager to conduct the group in a largely post-pandemic reality. “There’s a feeling like we’re on the back end of the COVID wave. We’re two years in — knock on any wood you can find — and there’s a real excitement amongst the singers to get back into this thing that they love doing,” he added. “It’s exciting for me to look back on 50 years of incredible music and to look forward to what the future may hold for all of us.” Sjolund felt confident in Jorgensen taking the reins of what he helped start so many years ago. “It’s been a really wonderful thing and, being really old, I can look down on … the kid … and say, ‘I just hope you get as much joy from this as I did!’” 2022-2023 Rogue Valley Chorale concerts are scheduled for Dec. 3-4, March 25-26 and June 15-16. For a full schedule, including this year’s youth concerts, see roguevalleychorale.org . Reach Mail Tribune reporter Buffy Pollock at 541-776-8784 or [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @orwritergal.