Jason C. Tramm Named Music Director of the Morris Choral Society

In anticipation of its 44th Season, the Morris Choral Society announces the appointment of noted conductor Jason C. Tramm as Music Director. Board President Vincent P. Marchese's announcement came at the conclusion of a several month search. With the appointment, Tramm becomes the third individual in forty years to hold the position of Music Director following Morris Choral Society (MCS) founder and Music Director Wayne Walters retirement in 2015 and Matthew Lee's departure from the podium at the end of last season.

A highly regarded New Jersey arts leader, educator and conductor whose work in the symphonic, operatic and choral repertoire has earned acclaim at home and abroad, Jason C. Tramm currently serves as Music Director of the summer based Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association. For the past decade Tramm has led and conducted the Annual Ocean Grove Choir Festival at the historic Great Auditorium, the largest sacred music choral event on the East Coast, featuring a combined 1000 member choir and orchestra. Tramm is Principal Conductor and Artistic Director of the Morristown based MidAtlantic Opera with whom he made his Carnegie Hall debut October 2015 in "A Prayer for Peace," A member of the faculty at Seton Hall University, Tramm is Assistant Professor and Director of Choral Activities, College of Communication and the Arts, where he leads the University Choir, Chamber Choir, and Orchestra. Tramm also serves as Principal Conductor of the Teatro Lirico D'Europa, a touring professional opera company, with whom he will conduct over 25 performances in 2016-17 and is Artistic Advisor/Conductor of the Adelphi Orchestra in Oradell, NJ.

Although Tramm had not yet been born when the Morris Choral Society was founded by Walters in 1973, MCS Director Emeritus Wayne Walter believes it is the vitality of Tramm's youth and accomplishment that makes Tramm an outstanding choice for Music Director of the Morris Choral Society. "I feel a younger conductor will attract younger performers - and that will keep the group healthy and vibrant." Additionally, Walter's pointed to several characteristics shared by both Tramm and the MCS which made Tramm a desirable leader. Walter's cited Tramm's ecumenical roots, bringing people of all nationalities and religious beliefs together through the experience of music, and Tramm'slongstanding commitment to excellent and varied performance repertoire featuring "insightful presentations of new compositions and the classics" making Tramm a compelling conductor. Walter's shared that over its history the "Morris Choral Society had developed a vast repertoire, including many major works. Yet as early as 1980, with the commissioning of our first major composition by renowned American composer Kevin Norris, MCS's established a reputation for performing new works as well."

Tramm will make his conducting debut with the MCS as the Morris Choral Society launches its 2016-2017 Season at the Bickford Theatre, December 10 and 11 in a program reflecting three centuries of holiday music. The concert will featureOttorino Respighi's rarely performed masterpiece "Laud to the Nativity" for soloists, chorus and wind instruments - as well as celebrated works by Whitacre, Praetorius, Caldwell and Ivory and Leavitt. On May 20, 2017 Tramm will lead the second of MCS's major concerts "Peace, Triumphant Peace!" at the Dorothy Young Center at Drew University with a choral/orchestral performance dedicated to the music of peace and to peacemakers making a difference in our world. The Morris Choral Society will partner with the Adelphi Orchestra in a performances of Mendelssohn's serene "Verleihuns Freiden" (Grant us Peace) and Beethoven's majestic Choral Fantasy, Op. 80. The concert will also feature the New Jersey premiere of Karl Jenkins' monumental "The Peacemakers" a major work whose world premiere took place at Carnegie Hall in 2012. Jenkin's composition incorporates texts from great advocates of peace - Gandhi, Anne Frank, Rumi and Martin Luther King and synthesizes classical and world music, making "The Peacemakers" a work of great importance.

About the Morris Choral Society
Since its founding in 1973 the Morris Choral Society (MCS) has dedicated itself to the residents of Morris County and has played a significant role in Northern New Jersey's artistic community. In 2015 the MCS was nominated by its peers for the 2016 New Jersey People's Choice Award, Choral Group Division. Each performance season traditionally includes two major concerts as well as several concert appearances at many of Morristown's annual celebrations: Independence Day, the historical Holly Walk, its popular Fall Festival On the Green, and First Night. The MCS has performed with Judy Collins in her Christmas Show; with Dave Brubeck in La Fiesta de la Posada, at the Mayo Performing Arts Center. The Morris Choral Society has received international recognition performing successful concerts in England in 1990, Ireland in 1994, Scotland and Wales in 1996, France in 1998 and Italy in the summer of 2000. The MCS has been represented by "ambassadorial" choral contingents in multi-choral units in Eastern Europe in 1997 and 2000. During its 44 years the MCS has assembled a vast and varied musical repertoire, the cornerstone of which is an impressive library of music from the Renaissance to the present. The MCS is funded in part by the Arts Council of the Morris Area through the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State, a Partner Agency of the National Endowment for the Arts. Additional funding has also been provided by the Arts Council of the Morris Area/Dodge Foundation Partnership. To learn more about the Morris Choral Society and its programming visitwww.morrischoralsociety.org