Enhanced by stunning artistic projections, this performance showcases Matthew Hazzard’s Finding Light, performed by chorus and professional orchestra. Moving from darkness toward radiance, the work explores themes of hope, renewal, and the human spirit’s enduring resilience.

The first half of the concert will highlight the National Symphonic Chorus, including works by Rosephanye Powell, André Thomas, Susan LaBarr, and Marques L. A. Garrett.

TOM TRENNEY, GUEST CONDUCTOR

Tom Trenney shares his passion as pastoral musician, composer, and teacher in worship with his home congregation, in the college classroom, and in performances, hymn festivals, choral and organ workshops and master classes all around the country.  Tom is blessed to be in his twelfth season as Minister of Music to First-Plymouth Church in Lincoln, Nebraska, where he shepherds three adult choirs, accompanies the congregation on the Lied organ, preaches sermons, and serves as Artistic Director of the Abendmusik Concert Series.  Since 2016, First-Plymouth’s choirs have been honored to perform at the Nebraska Music Educators Association Convention as well as for state, regional, and national conventions of the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA).  The Plymouth Choir was the only church choir named a finalist for the American Prize in 2018-19.

Since Fall 2019, Tom has been Assistant Professor of Music and Conductor of Choirs at Nebraska Wesleyan University, following interim choral positions at Doane University and Wartburg College.  He is also founding Artistic Director and Conductor of sounding light-- a professional choir which has sung for national ACDA and was awarded third place in 2018-19 for the American Prize for choral performance of American music.

Tom’s choral compositions have been published by Augsburg Fortress, Beckenhorst Press, Choristers Guild, E.C. Schirmer/Galaxy, Morningstar, MusicSpoke, Pavane, and G. Schirmer.  His music has been sung in churches and colleges around the country.  In the 2018-19 season, Tom has been invited as guest performer and clinician for national conventions of the American Guild of Organists and the Hymn Society of America.  He and the Nebraska Wesleyan University Choir were featured at the 2019 National Conference on Sacred Music.

A graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Music and the Eastman School of Music, Tom is grateful for the inspiration of his teachers and mentors – especially Anton Armstrong, David Davidson, Craig Hella Johnson, (Mister) Fred Rogers, William Weinert, Anne Wilson and Todd Wilson.

MATTHEW HAZZARD, GUEST CONDUCTOR

Matthew Lyon Hazzard (b. 1989) is the Director of Choral Activities at Mt. San Antonio College and an award-winning Filipino-American composer and conductor.

Praised for his “exquisite text-setting” and for creating “stunning landscapes of sound” (18th Street Singers), Hazzard’s music is regularly performed by professional, collegiate, and Grammy-award winning ensembles around the world, including the Santa Fe Desert Chorale, the Metropolitan Chorus of Tokyo, the University of Georgia Hodgson Singers, the Mendelssohn Chorus of Philadelphia, the Concordia University Irvine Chamber Singers, the Vancouver Chamber Choir, the Choral Project, and others. His music has been featured in many all-state and honor choirs, including those in Arizona, California, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, Utah, and Washington. He has been commissioned by the Oregon Repertory Singers, the Portland State Chamber Choir, the Young New Yorkers’ Chorus, the Bob Cole Chamber Choir, and others. In 2022, four of his works were performed at three different regional conferences of the American Choral Directors Association, and in 2023, he served as composer-in-residence at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario.

His music has received numerous accolades. He became a prize winner in the Vancouver Chamber Choir Young Composers Competition in 2011, won the North Carolina Master Chorale Composition Competition in 2012, and was awarded the William and Eleanor Greatbatch Endowed Choral Composition Prize from Houghton College in 2014. He was also awarded the grand prize in the 18th Street Singers 10th Anniversary Composition Competition, second prize in the 2016 International Choral Composition Competition Japan, named PREMIERE|Project composer for the Choral Arts Initiative, and won the 2016 Arrowhead Chorale Choral Composition Competition. In 2017, he won the ACDA Raymond W. Brock Student Composition Competition, and became the inaugural winner of the True Concord Stephen Paulus Emerging Composer Composition Competition. Since then, he has won various awards, including those from CCDA, ACDA, the Young New Yorkers’ Chorus, and more.

Hazzard earned his D.M.A. in Choral Conducting from the Moores School of Music at the University of Houston, his M.M. in Choral Conducting from the Bob Cole Conservatory at California State University Long Beach, and his M.A.T. and B.M. in Music Composition from East Carolina University. He has directed and conducted school, community, church, collegiate, and professional choirs, and is regularly invited as a guest composer and clinician. At the Bob Cole Conservatory at CSULB, he directed the Cantus Tenor-Bass ensemble and the Bel Canto Treble Choir, and served as assistant conductor for the University Choir and award-winning Bob Cole Chamber Choir; he also conducted the USC Thornton Concert Choir at the 2017 Western ACDA Conference in the premiere of his piece, Peace Flows Into Me. At the University of Houston, he directed the entry-level University Women’s Chorus, the Soundscape advanced treble choir, and the Valiant Online Chorus, and conducted the ManCorps Tenor-Bass choir and the premiere mixed choir Concert Chorale in concert. He was also the Choral Conducting Intern at the Houston Chamber Choir for their 2021–2022 season, and a rehearsal conductor for the Houston Symphony Chorus. In 2022, he assembled a choir of his own to perform Eric Whitacre’s 2018 hour-long work for choir, piano, and cello, The Sacred Veil. His work was recognized throughout his education: he received the 2018 and 2019 Outstanding Student Award in Graduate Conducting at CSULB; the 2018 University Achievement Award for Outstanding Graduate Student in Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity by CSULB Academic Affairs; and the 2019 Distinguished Achievement in Creative Activity Award from the CSULB College of the Arts. He was also awarded the Jeanette Chase Bay Area Chorus Scholarship, and the Howard Pollack Scholarship at the University of Houston.

Prior to pursuing his graduate studies, Hazzard taught at Greene Central High School (NC) for four years where his choirs flourished underneath his leadership. His ensembles received consistent superior ratings, and won the 2015 Busch Gardens Music Sweepstakes Award for Best High School Choral performance; an honor that recognizes the strongest performing ensemble across the entire season. In 2016, his choirs were invited to perform on the stage of Carnegie Hall, where they premiered Ivo Antognini’s A Prayer for Mother Earth under the direction of Andrew Crane.

He continues to write for voices at his home in Long Beach, California.

PROGRAM

Tuesday June 16, 2026 at 8:00 PM
CARNEGIE HALL

National Symphonic Chorus 
Tom Trenney, guest conductor

C.H.H. PARRY arr. JANTZ BLACK O Day of Peace The Dimly Shines
ROSEPHANYE POWELL I Dream a World
ANDRÉ THOMAS Gloria
J.K. ALWOOD arr. SHAWN KIRCHNER Unclouded Day
TOM TRENNEY Thither Will I Go 
SUSAN LABARR The River
MARQUES L.A. GARRETT My Heart Be Brave

National Masterwork Chorus 
Matthew Hazzard, guest conductor 

MATTHEW HAZZARD Finding Light