William D. Pardus, KSC Professor Emeritus of Music, recently won the Director’s Prize in a competition sponsored by the Longfellow Chorus of Portland, Maine.

The Longfellow Chorus is a nonprofit chorus with the mission of inspiring new vocal and choral settings of the poetry of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and this first annual competition is part of the celebration of the 201st anniversary of Longfellow’s birth in Portland. Pardus’s composition “Three Songs of the Coast” is a setting for soprano voice and piano of three of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poems.

The Advancement Division’s Russ Cobb talked with Dr. Pardus for a bit yesterday about the prize, and the experience of composing music to Longfellow’s words. We’ve put a couple snippets of that conversation below:

On the nature of the contest:

On the challenges of composing to Longfellow’s poetry:

The full interview, including a few bars of the piece Russ managed to wrangle out of him, is posted here.

You can read more about the award here.

Any press inquiries should be directed to Robin Dutcher in College Relations, at 603-358-2119 or rdutcher@keene.edu.