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Choral Music in the Twentieth Century:

“Everyone with a love of choral music – whether composer, conductor, singer or just fond admirer – should have this eloquent book in their library. Strimple, a gifted and articulate writer, has produced a volume that is easy, enjoyable and enlightening to read . . . Finally, the strongest endorsement I can offer is that this text is required reading for my graduate students.” – James Dearing, American Music Teacher, April/May 2006

"Full of insight, analysis, and informed opinion . . . Strimple has done us a huge service with this consolidation of the last century's choral literature." - Timothy Sharpe, Choral Journal, October 2003

"This is an excellent and valuable book" - Steve Holtje, Fanfare, July/August 2003

"This volume is the first to focus on the century's choral repertoire, and it sets a high standard . . . Not only is it the indispensable guide to choral music of the twentieth century, but it is among the most comprehensive and well-written guides to choral repertoire of any period." - William Weinert, American Choral Review, Spring/Summer 2003

"As an overview of what happened where, and when, this book is indeed encyclopaedic. As a descriptive catalogue of all this music, this is the first book to consult." - Peter Dale, Choir & Organ, May/June 2003

"An essential source book for the genre." - William McVicker, Classical Music, February 2003

"This is a valuable and rewarding book." - Pasatiempo, Jan.31-Feb. 6, 2003

"Nick Strimple offers us here a very thorough, yet concise global overview of serious choral music from the century just ended . . . Strimple writes in a straightforward, lively style, reflecting his rare understanding and deep affection for choral music . . .This significant and user friendly volume belongs in every music library as well as on the bookshelf of any choral director, scholar, singer, or serious choral aficionado." - Lindsey Koob, American Record Guide, January/February 2003

"[A ] masterful discussion . . . Any choral director or lover of choral music would prize the Works List at the end of this volume, along with an extensive Bibliography and Index, and, of course, the book itself. It's a gem." - Phyllis Villec, The California Music Teacher, Fall 2002

"This is a great book and will be helpful for professionals and music lovers . . . Nick Strimple has done an excellent and absolutely thorough job." - Maestro Helmut Rilling

"Nick Strimple's volume is an essential reading for choral musicians. The global overview provides the most current information available on world choral musics. In a marketplace of mundane historical surveys, Dr. Strimple succinctly presents fact carefully balanced with scholarly comment." - Robert Blocker, Dean, Yale University School of Music

"Nick Strimple's scholarly examination . . . has provided an invaluable resource for all conductors of serious choral music . . . The book promises to be a necessary addition to every conductors library. - Maestro Paul Salamunovich

Live and Recorded Performances:

“This recording features particularly forceful contributions from the Choral Society of Southern California, the Los Angeles Zimriyah Chorale and narrator Theodore Bikel . . . The result is one of the best releases in the Milken Archive series to date.” The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, April 7-13, 2006 [review of Naxos 8.559440] Reprinted in The Jewish Week, July 20, 2006

“ . . . Special commendation to the Choral Society of Southern California, which is beautifully balanced and blended in [Judith Zaimont’s] Meditations.” – Fanfare, May/June 2006 [review of Naxos 8.559444]

“Nick Strimple’s Choral Society of Southern California gives a tremendous choral performance. With crisp diction, the sense that they know what they’re singing about, and an heroic job of maintaining pitch.” - Classical Archives, January 2006 (#94) [review of Naxos 8.559444]

"Assembling a project of this magnitude is no easy task, and all involved can be congratulated for the smooth efficiency with which the program was delivered. The sound was . . . accurate and well balanced, and the integration of the varying elements - choir, orchestra, and soloists - beautifully illuminated the driving spirit at the heart of the music. The Choral Society rendered [the music] with style and infectious enthusiasm." - Los Angeles Times, 12 June 2001 (review of Sacred Concert by Duke Ellington]

"Nick Strimple is not only an acknowledged expert on music of the Holocaust period (Shoah) and on Jewish music in general, especially American, but he is also well-versed in Czech composers. The programme of the Prague vocal concert (20th of November) combined all his interests. . . [and was] performed with great authenticity." - Czech Music, January/February 2001

"In Bernstein's Kaddish, project music director Nick Strimple has a powerful but hardly unproblematic vehicle for reconciliation. The multifarious performance challenges were generally well met here. Strimple guided the dramatic performance with care and conviction." - Los Angeles Times, 15 November 2000

"Formed in 1982, the Choral Society of Southern California [under the direction of Nick Strimple] is obviously a very fine choir, with a good and just balance between male and female voices. They have a bright, silvery, and distinctly American sound, placing them some distance from the less sharply etched and mellow quality of their European counterparts. Their dynamic range is large, with the most transparent quality in quiet passages, and they have an admirable sense of pitch and intonation." - Fanfare, September/October 2000

"The program's midsection offered a male vocal octet, under the scrupulous direction of Nick Strimple, in a selection of Bartók arrangements of Slovak folk songs and, even more engrossingly, the quirky modalities and offbeat rhythms of the Opus 50 set of Old Hungarian Folk Songs. [Strimple's] singers presented this rarely encountered (anywhere, we'd wager) material with a thrilling blend of concert-hall polish and folksy vigor." - Los Angeles Times, 29 August 1994 (review of Getty Museum concert)

"Nick Strimple is one of those ardent workers in the local musical underbrush whose praise is too seldom sung. Choirmaster at Beverly Hills Presbyterian Church and founder of the Los Angeles Vocal & Instrumental Ensemble (which goes under its acronym, LA VIE), Strimple has produced important premieres in Southern California, including large-scale works by Dvorák and several new compositions. Last Saturday night at the latest of the Getty Museum's splendid summer concerts, Strimple and LA VIE put together a program enterprising and rewarding, nicely planned and beautifully performed." - LA Weekly, 5 August 1993.

"The performance, clearly a labor of love for all concerned, enlisted the services of . . . Nick Strimple's Southern California Choral Society, singing with both touching sweetness and climactic heft." - Los Angeles Times, 30 May 1992 (review of Schoenberg's Kol Nidre)

Music & Arts CD 4921:

"Our choral readers might also want to check out these anthems by Nick Strimple. [They are] interesting and expressive." - American Record Guide, March/April 2000

Psalm 133:

"Beautiful polyphony without great difficulty." - Caecilia (France), August 1999

Cuchulain's Fight with the Sea:

"Its evocative orchestration (including handbells and harp), imaginative tone painting and easy flow between solo and choir, action and commentary, served well in bringing the Celtic events to life." - Timothy Mangan, Los Angeles Times, 16 March 1994

"Strimple's own mettlesome setting of William Butler Yeats' retelling of Celtic legends . . . reached an overpowering climax, with percussion and bells marvelously used." - Alan Rich, LA Weekly, 5 August 1993

Nativities:

"['Nativities' is] a well-crafted, appropriate and sometimes powerful telling of the Christmas story. In fact, with so few recent Christmas cantatas of quality accessible to both performer and listener, Nativities would be a welcome addition to the church music repertory. Strimple shifts easily from chant to angular vocal lines (in the Gesualdo tradition), from complex chord clusters to single sustained notes. And his use of thirds, unisons and imitation strengthens the drama whether shouting for joy or uttering a quiet meditation. His music, though strongly edged in Vaughan Williams-like colors and textures, is nevertheless individual and convincing." - Kenneth Sanson, Los Angeles Times, 20 December 1983

REVIEWS

Book: Choral Music in the Twentieth Century

“Everyone with a love of choral music – whether composer, conductor, singer or just fond admirer – should have this eloquent book in their library. Strimple, a gifted and articulate writer, has produced a volume that is easy, enjoyable and enlightening to read . . . Finally, the strongest endorsement I can offer is that this text is required reading for my graduate students.” [James Dearing, American Music Teacher, April/May 2006]

Recording: Judith Lang Zaimont: Meditations for the New Year

“Nick Strimple’s Choral Society of Southern California gives a tremendous choral performance. With crisp diction, the sense that they know what they’re singing about, and an heroic job of maintaining pitch.” [Classical Archives, January 2006 (#94)]

PHOTOS FROM THE ARCHIVE

5(l-r) Nick Strimple, Simon Spiro, Gerard Schwarz, Arianne Slack Brown, and Alberto Mizrahi following a Los Angeles Philharmonic Concert, 2006.

5Nick Strimple with composers Richard Willis and Steven Stucky, following a concert in 1992.

5Nick Strimple, Christof Perick and Günter Einhaus during a Nuremberg Symphony rehearsal break, 1987.

5Nick Strimple with Dan Aykroyd prior to a concert in 1997.