BREATHE IN: Exercising Empathy while Staying in your own Lane – Dr. Gregory Gentry – University of Colorado Boulder
As with many of us, my own methods of professional resilience have evolved—from challenges, personal events, successes, and years–as an elementary educator, then high school educator, through graduate schools, family life, and then as a university professor. Most recently, as a stage 4 cancer survivor I have discovered and invoked more calm and compassionate ways to deal with both students and programming, as well as one’s own peace of mind. Three pieces, presented here, by composers illustrate a refined understanding of compassion, insight and depth, thoughtful settings of texts embedded in contemplative music.
In the frustrating age of a pandemic such as we have been experiencing, the employment of resilience (or the capacity to recover quickly), empathy (the ability to listen), and Neuroscience (understanding the social brain and music) have been crucial. This presentation explores the music, the composers, and a better understanding of resilience and empathy.
The PowerPoint for this session is available here.
Website: gregorygentryconductor.com
Dr. Gentry is founding Chorus Master of the new Boulder Philharmonic Chorus working alongside conductor Michael Butterman and the Boulder Philharmonic, to present the world premiere of Ozymandias by composer Drew Hemenger (2022). A skilled interpreter of new works, Gentry conducted the world premiere of Reflections on a Mexican Garden by Colorado composer Kevin Padworski at Carnegie Hall in April 2018. Gentry is the former Phoenix Symphony Chorus Master (collaborating with conductor Michael Christie), where he prepared many major choral/orchestral masterworks, including Puccini’s Messa di Gloria (2012), North American premiere of In Principio by Arvo Pärt (2011), On the Transmigration of Souls (2010) and Nixon in China (2009) by John Adams, the world premiere of Mark Grey’s Enemy Slayer: A Navajo Oratorio (2008) with an English/Navajo libretto, and the Arizona premiere of Osvaldo Golijov’s Ainadamar in collaboration with Dawn Upshaw and Kelley O’Connor (2008). Gentry also made his Phoenix Symphony conducting debut in 2009 to sold-out audiences with Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms.
In addition to conducting All-State Choirs, Gentry’s collegiate choirs have performed at conferences for the American Choral Directors Association, National Collegiate Choral Organization, Music Educators National Conference, Colorado Music Educators Association, Arizona Music Educators Association, Society for American Music and College Music Society. At CU Boulder, he has prepared collaborative performances with the Boulder Philharmonic, Colorado Music Festival, Boulder Bach Festival, and conducted Maurice Duruflé’s Requiem with combined CU choirs and CU symphony (220+ singers and instrumentalists) at historic Macky Auditorium.
As a music editor, the Gregory Gentry Choral Series (Fred Bock Publishers) is distributed by Hal Leonard Corporation and features reviving select choral octavi from the former Golden and National Music catalogs, including significant works by Cecil Effinger, George Lynn, Wray Lundquist and Roy Harris. He takes professional delight in having founded Southwest Liederkranz in 2006, an intimate symposium for select choral professionals, where Kirke Mechem, Morten Lauridsen, Jaakko Mäntyjärvi, Vance George, Dale Warland, Dennis Keene, Duain Wolfe, Maria Guinand, Eph Ehly, Joshua Habermann, Sharon Paul and Gary Packwood have, to date, been invited to share their knowledge, wisdom, humor, and varying inspirations.
