PROVIDENCE – The Providence Singers Tuesday announced the establishment by its board of trustees of the group’s first endowment, The Wachner Fund for New Music.
“Julian Wachner is a superb musical leader and educator who took The Providence Singers to unprecedented levels of musical growth and artistic achievement during his tenure,” said Allison McMillan, executive director of the chorus. “As a composer and advocate for new music, he enriched and broadened the group’s repertoire by including 20th- and 21st-century works and new commissions.”
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The endowment – established using $100,000 raised during the former artistic director’s 10th and final season with The Singers, almost all of it donated by members of the chorus and its board – is being managed by The Rhode Island Foundation. It is to be used to help finance commissions and first performances of new compositions.
“With this fund,” McMillan said, “we commemorate Julian’s time with us and permanently honor all that he has done for the organization.”
Wachner is now serving as associate professor of music at McGill University’s Schulich School of Music, co-artistic director of the Bach-Academie de Montreal and director of music at the Church of St. Andrew and St. Paul.
Meanwhile, McMillan noted, The Providence Singers’ transformation continues. This year, in its first season under the direction of Andrew Clark, the group is hosting a regional choral festival that will include the world premieres March 3 and 4 of three works commissioned for the occasion.
“About five years into Julian’s tenure, with larger audiences and a larger musical program, we realized that we were never going to go back,” McMillan said. “We began asking ourselves how we could develop an organizational structure that would support what Julian was achieving in the artistic side of the house. …
“The structural changes we made helped Julian, and his successor Andrew Clark, to aim even higher, launching new educational programs and expanding the choral experience for individual members and audiences alike.”
