He is a
conductor, composer, arranger and teacher born in Pinelawn,
New Jersey who took his studies at the
Juilliard School of Music.After graduation he become an arranger and conductor and has since
worked with popular acts such as Peter, Paul & Mary, Harry Belafonte and
Paul Robeson.In the mid to
late 1950s he formed the Robert De Cormier Singers who have since become a
highly acclaimed ensemble that have made many album recordings.Joining ASCAP in 1958, he continued
to arrange and conduct on a national and international level and has worked
with several orchestras and ensembles, often as a guest conductor, such as the
Buffalo Philharmonic, Counterpoint which is an ensemble founded by him, the
Dale Warland Singers, Turtle Creek Choral, the Vermont Symphony Orchestra and
the Zimriya World Assembly of Choirs in Israel as well as being the Music
Director of the New York Choral Society for a period of 17 years.He has since become their Music Director
Emeritus and led them in performances of Requiems by Berlioz and Verdi as
well as the commissioned piece the Missa Iona.He led the orchestras in the operatic tour of the
productions Brundibar and Der Kaiser von Atlantis in the mid-1990s
while working on a two-year music project that took its basis from music
that came from the Terezin concentration camp in Czechoslovakia.In 2002 he
led the Vermont Symphony Orchestra & Chorus in a performance of
Brahm's Requiem and the New
York Choral Society in a performance of his own Under a Greenwood
Tree along with Chichester Psalms by Leonard Bernstein and Four
Sacred Pieces by Verdi as part the concerts from series held in his 80th
birthday celebration. He is recognized
for his arrangements of spiritual and Christmas music but has also worked
on popular music, choral works, the Broadway musicals 110 in the Shade
and The Happiest Girl in the World and as the Choir Director on the
album release Charlton Heston Reads the Old Testament.His work as a composer his numerous
works have seen him writing the ballet score for Rainbow 'Round
My Shoulder, the cantata The Jolly Beggar, Spiritual Suite and
the choral works Legacy,Shout for Joy and Four Sonnets to
Orpheus.The recordings his
work has appeared on are numerous and it's impossible to mention them all
but they include A Counterpoint Christmas and Missa Criolla with
Counterpoint, at least four Christmas albums, Awake Sweet Love and Carmina
Burana with the Robert De Cormier Singers, Dance Gal, Gimme Dat
Banjo by The Robert De Cormier Folk Singers, Spirituals in Concert
by Kathleen Battle and Jessye Norman, Swing Dat Hammer by Harry Belafonte,
God Bless America by the Mormon
Tabernacle Choir , Vaughn
Williams: Mass in G Minor and Kodaly: Missa Brevis by the New
York Choral Society and Holiday Celebration by Peter, Paul &
Mary and The Green Album by John
Williams . He has appeared on television many
times in series/programmes such as Choral Folk Songs, Christmas at Carnegie,
Christmastide with Jessye Norman, Lifelines and Peter, Paul &
Mommy too and is an Emmy Award winner for the a special he did with Harry
Belafonte. In the field of
musical education he taught at the Little Red Schoolhouse in New York for
six years and in arts committees he has been a choral panel member of the
National Endowment of the Arts and a member of the New York State Council
of the Arts.Recognised for
his contribution to music he was awarded the Governor's Award for
Excellence in the Arts in 2002 by the Vermont Arts Council.
