The Composer Residency Project
The Project:
COVID certainly left its mark on education and the arts. Performing groups today are smaller than they were as many people, for whatever reasons, chose not to return to what they were involved in pre-COVID.
Our schools have seen a decrease in the number of students participating in the performing arts and post-graduation
participation is lukewarm. Rural communities have witnessed this phenomenon to a greater extent than urban areas. What can be done to turn things around?
That is the question Ron Sayer started asking in 2021. More specifically, what can the Marshall Community Chorus do, and what impact can it have on a needed change?
Thanks to a generous initial gift from the Charles M. Buckner Foundation, we hope to begin to have an impact with the creation of the Marshall Community Chorus Composer Residency Project.
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Goals of the Project:
The goals of the project include:
- Bringing noted American choral composers to
Missouri for a mini-residency.
- Performance of several of the composer's choral works on concerts of the Marshall Community Chorus.
- Have the composer rehearse the chorus prior to the concert, sharing insight into the compositions and bringing to life the composer's "vision" of
the performance.
- Be present at the concert and participate in a
"Meet the Composer" Q&A opportunity with
the audience prior to the performance.
- Visit area high school and middle school students in rural west-central Missouri to interact with and encourage them to consider their musical pursuits and provide an insight into the art of composition.
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The goals of this project tie in beautifully with the mission of the Marshall Community Chorus:
performance, audience cultivation, education and development of musical skills in our youth.
Our Inaugural Composers
Joseph Martin
Sunday, October 27, 2024
Joseph Martin, a native of North Carolina, earned his Bachelor of Music degree in Piano Performance at Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina. Subsequently, he earned a Master of Music degree in Piano Performance at the University of Texas in Austin, where he taught for five years in the Piano Pedagogy Department of the University of Texas. His piano teachers include Jimmy Woodle, David Gibson, Amanda Vick Lethco, Martha Hilley and Danielle Martin. While at Furman, he was the accompanist for choral director and composer Milburn Price, and inspired by his teaching, Martin began composing.
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Joe is a member of the staff at the Hal Leonard Corporation and Shawnee Press, Inc., as Director of Sacred Publications, with responsibilities for overseeing the company's editorial and creative direction and co-ordinating the recording and production aspects of future publishing efforts.
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Joseph has performed solo piano recitals and has been a featured artist with symphony orchestras in the United States and Mexico. As the Nina Plant Wideman Competition winner, he performed with the Guadalajara Symphony Orchestra. His solo recital in Ex-Convento del Carmen was broadcast nationally throughout Mexico.
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Recognized throughout the United States for his many choral compositions, both sacred and secular, Joseph's music is published by numerous publishing houses. Over two thousand compositions are currently in print, and the list continues to grow.
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In 2008, he was inducted as a National Patron of the Delta Omicron International Music Fraternity. Along with Mark Hayes and David Angerman, Joseph has co-authored a fully graded, progressive piano method for the Christian student called Keys for the Kingdom. His major works include over 60 choral cantatas and Song of Wisdom, a choral tone poem based on the best-selling children's book Old Turtle. His work for young voices, Heartsongs, inspired by the life and words of Mattie J. Stepanek, was given its premier at Carnegie Hall.
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​His music can be heard in such diverse locations as Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center in New York City; Constitution Hall in Washington DC; The Lawrence Welk Theatre in Branson, Missouri; St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City; and in churches across the United States and Canada.
Mark Hayes
Sunday, April 27, 2025
Mark Hayes was raised in a creative musical environment, beginning piano lessons at age ten and developing his improvisational skills at an early age. He earned a B.M. in piano performance, magna cum laude, from Baylor University. While in college, his dream of becoming a composer and arranger was born and nurtured. Now an internationally known writer, conductor, and concert pianist, his career has blossomed into international tours of Europe, Asia, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, South Africa, and Canada.
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Hayes’ music is found in the music libraries of churches and universities worldwide. His compositions and arrangements are known for their unique American sound, drawing from diverse musical styles such as gospel, jazz, pop, folk, and classical. Mr. Hayes’ personal catalog, totaling over 2,000 published works, includes work for solo voice, solo piano, multiple pianos, orchestra, jazz combo, small instrumental ensembles, and choruses of all kinds. He is honored to have his music regularly featured at ACDA, MENC and Chorus America conventions. The Grammy Award-winning Kansas City Chorale, under the direction of Charles Bruffy, has recorded Hayes’ large works for chorus and orchestra.
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In 2010, Baylor University Center for Christian Music Studies awarded Mark the Award for Exemplary Leadership in Christian Music. Hayes received the first place composition award in the eighth annual John Ness Beck Foundation competition.
Mark arranged and orchestrated the music for Civil War Voices, which won six awards including “Best Musical” in the 2010 Midtown International Theatre Festival in New York. His latest venture in musical theater is “We’ll Meet Again,” which premiered at the Historic Savannah Theatre in Savannah, GA in 2022 to high acclaim and toured the Southeast in 2023.
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​Hayes conducted the Community and Church Honor Choir at 2008 MCDA Convention and led the Community and Church Honor Choir at the SWACDA Regional Convention in 2010 featuring his Gloria. He conducted the world premiere of his new work for chorus, orchestra and narrator, The American Spirit, at Lincoln Center in May 2011 and the world premiere of his Requiem at Lincoln Center May 27, 2013. In October 2014, Hayes conducted the European premiere of his Requiem at St. Ignatius Basilica in Rome as part of The Festival Pro Musica E Arte Sacra. In March 2019 Mark helped plan and lead the Ecumenical Worship Service for the national ACDA convention in Kansas City, MO. On November 12, 2019, Hayes conducted his Requiem in Brasília, Brazil, featuring the Coro Sinfônico Communitário and Orquestra Sinfônica. He regularly conducts his works for chorus and orchestra at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center.