Guest Artists

Dominick DiOrio is a conductor and composer who has won widespread acclaim for his contributions to American music. He has been recognized with The American Prizes in both Choral Composition (2014) and Choral Performance (2019, with NOTUS). In July 2020, he became the 14th Artistic Director & Conductor of the Mendelssohn Chorus of Philadelphia, now in its 150th season, where he has had the honor of preparing the singers for performances with The Philadelphia Orchestra. DiOrio has conducted ensembles around the world, from the Houston Chamber Choir and Choral Arts Initiative in the USA to Allmänna Sången and Ars Veritas abroad. A strong advocate for new music, he has he has premiered over 50 original works, and he has collaborated with Paquito D’Rivera, Melissa Dunphy, Marques L.A. Garrett, Han Lash, Caroline Shaw, Moira Smiley, and Christopher Theofanidis. Committed to diversity and inclusion in artistic programming, DiOrio proudly programs works that reflect the diversity of our world. As a composer, DiOrio has been hailed for a keenly intelligent, evocative style, which shows “a tour de force of inventive thinking and unique colour” (Gramophone). His over 50 published works have appeared at major venues around the world including the Sydney Opera House, Lincoln Center, and Carnegie Hall. He writes music for singers and players of all ages and experiences, and his recent commissioning partners include the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus, the Children’s Chorus of Washington, the Worcester Youth Orchestras, The Choral Arts Society of Washington, and “The President’s Own” United States Marine Band. Since 2012, he has been a member of the choral conducting faculty at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, where he serves as Professor of Music and leads the select, new music vocal ensemble NOTUS, one of only 24 choirs in the world selected by competitive audition to perform at the 12th World Symposium on Choral Music in Auckland, New Zealand, before it was cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic. DiOrio recently completed a term as president of the National Collegiate Choral Organization (2018-2022). For his leadership during the pandemic, he was honored with NCCO’s inaugural Distinguished Service Award. He holds the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in conducting from the Yale School of Music, as well as the MMA and MM in conducting from Yale and the BM in composition summa cum laude from Ithaca College.

Composer Lee R. Kesselman is best known as a composer of vocal works, including opera, music for chorus, chamber music and solo songs. Large vocal works include the opera The Bremen Town Musicans (commissioned by Opera for the Young), The Emperor’s New Clothes (a choral opera), Measuring the Holy for SATB, children and orchestra, Shona Mass for voices and African percussion, and Infinity in the Palm of Your Hand, a symphony for treble chorus and orchestra, and Praise to the Light of the World for men, women, SATB and symphonic band. The Bremen Town Musicans has been performed over 350 times for schoolchildren in Wisconsin, Illinois, Tennessee and Texas.

Kesselman served as Director of Choral Activities at the College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn, a suburb of Chicago, from 1981-2022. He is Founder and Music Director of the New Classic Singers, a professional choral ensemble. He also directed the DuPage Chorale and College of DuPage Chamber Singers. A native of Milwaukee, he holds undergraduate degrees in piano and composition from Macalester College in Saint Paul, Minnesota, and a master’s degree in conducting from the University of Southern California. In addition to teaching and composing, Mr. Kesselman is active as a conductor, pianist, clinician and lecturer. He has been music director for a variety of opera and musical theatre productions. Kesselman was Chair of the Music Program at College of DuPage and Founding Curator of the Music Fridays @ Noon series. He served as President of Illinois Choral Directors Association. Chicago a cappella awarded Kesselman its Tribute Award in 2018.

Mollie Stone serves as Choral Conductor and Lecturer at the University of Chicago, Co-Founder/Director of the Chicago World Music Chorus, and teaches internationally with the organization Village Harmony. Stone holds a BA from Amherst College, a Masters in conducting from Westminster Choir College, a Doctorate in choral conducting from Northwestern University, and has studied at the University of Cape Town in South Africa.

Stone wrote her dissertation on how Black South Africans adapted the choral music of the anti-apartheid struggle to address the HIV/AIDS epidemic. In 2001, Stone received a grant from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation to produce a teaching DVD (Vela Vela) that helps choral directors across the world learn about Black South African choral music, and how to teach it more authentically in the oral tradition. In collaboration with Village Harmony and Chicago Children’s Choir, Stone has since created a number of additional digital teaching materials that help singers learn about the music of South Africa,The Republic of Georgia, and Bulgaria. Stone works in the US and abroad to facilitate collaborations, projects, programs, and tours that allow singers to study the music of other traditions by working directly with culture bearers. Likewise, Stone works to provide culture bearers with platforms and resources that support them in sharing their music on their own terms.

An ASCAPlus award-winning composer, Andrea believes strongly in the creation of new works. She enjoys residency collaborations with ensembles and festival choirs, some of which have included: the Allegro Choirs of Kansas City, Ithaca College, and the Crescent City Choral Festival in New Orleans.

YNS was thrilled to work with Dr. Ramsey during our 35th Anniversary celebrations in 2019. YNS commissioned and premiered “The Light Returns” under the direction of Dr. Ramsey. This work featured the intermediate and advanced choirs of YNS, and the singers really enjoyed rehearsing with Andrea and singing some of her other compositions as well.

Through the Foundation for Small Voices, he has conducted songwriting workshops with choirs from the United States, China, Japan, Tanzania, Mexico, Kenya, Newfoundland, Dominican Republic, Haiti, England, Norway, Canada, Spain, Italy, Kenya, Uganda, Turkey, Brazil, France, Ireland, Bosnia, Jordan, Australia, Holland, Dubai, and Greece.

His music has been featured at:

• Beijing Olympics
• GIVE US HOPE on permanent exhibit at the 911 Museum in New York
• 9.11 10th Anniversary Concerts throughout the world including New York, Moscow, Tokyo, Beijing, London, Oslo, Paris, Shanghai, Rio, Rome, Salzburg, St. Petersburg, Dubai, Delhi, Oslo, Paris
• 2008 Presidential Inauguration
• Pope visit televised nationally at Yankee Stadium
• World Cup South Africa 2010
Mr. Papoulis has done songwriting workshops with our singers here in Naperville, and at the Queen City Children’s Choir Festival in Cincinnati. The singers come away from his workshop with a sense of accomplishment, knowing that they have contributed to the composition of a brand new song.

Here are links for more information about Jim Papoulis:
www.jimpapoulis.com
www.foundationforsmallvoices.org

As well as being Principal Guest Conductor of the BBC Singers, he has conducted many other leading choirs in their field, including the World Youth Choir, the RIAS Kammerchor, Orphei Drangar from Sweden, Jauna Musika from Lithuania, the Taipei Chamber Singers, and the Tower New Zealand Youth Choir. He has worked in 23 countries on six continents, and at festivals from Festival 500 in Newfoundland to Tallinn, wherein 2004, as the first foreign musician to be invited, he conducted a choir of 7000 young singers at the Estonian Song Festival is one of his most popular pieces, “Can you hear me?”.

In 2014, Mr. Chilcott came to YNS to help us celebrate our 30th Anniversary with a multi-day rehearsal and performance experience. In addition to premiering the commissioned work, “The Sun and Stars are Mine”, all of the YNS choirs enjoyed rehearsing with Mr. Chilcott and performing several of his best-known choral works.

Staley began his teaching career at Eisenhower High School in Blue Island, Illinois, before moving to Waubonsie Valley High school in Aurora. Transferring to Naperville’s Neuqua Valley High School when it opened in 1997, he served as Fine Arts Department Chair before retiring from public school teaching in 2015.

Bands and orchestras under Staley’s direction have performed at the Midwest Clinic, Chicago’s Orchestra Hall, the University of Illinois’ Krannert Center and at venues in the People’s Republic of China, England, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Spain, Hungary and the Czech Republic. The Merit School of Music Wind Symphony will be a featured performer at the 2019 Illinois Music Educators Conference and share a concert with the University Illinois Wind Symphony at Krannert Hall on May 1, 2019.

Staley is the recipient of the ASBDA Distinguished Band Director Award, the ILMEA Mary Hoffman Excellence in Teaching Award, the CYSO Music Inspiration Award, the John Philip Sousa Foundation’s Sudler Flag of Honor and the John Paynter Lifetime Achievement Award.

Under Staley’s leadership, Neuqua Valley High School was twice recognized by the GRAMMY® Foundation as the National GRAMMY® Signature School and was awarded the 2009 John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts National Schools of Distinction in Arts Education Award.

Staley is a National Board Certified Teacher and holds degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Chip Staley has served as a guest speaker and advisor to YNS.

La Caccina came to Naperville to sing with the advanced YNS choirs in February of 2020 on the “Rise Up” event. Carling Fitzsimmons, Artistic Director of La Caccina, said of the experience, “When we started La Caccina, there were so few places for young women to share their voices and know they would be heard; working with and listening to [the YNS singers] last weekend, we know that the future is in very good hands.”

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