Conductor
Camille Chitwood Conducting
Camille Chitwood received her MA in conducting in June 2011 under the tuteledge of Nicole Paiement at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She has served as the assistant conductor to the UCSC Opera, Chamber Singers, and Orchestra and a guest conductor to several UCSC Wind Ensemble performances. She has also served as the music director and conductor of the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music Student Staff program from 2008-2011. To hire her for a conducting performance, contact her today.
Works Conducted in Concert:
Bailey, Jacob “Luffy”:
Barnaby, Scott:
Becker, Dan:
Gridlock: “Do men and women write music differently? Are there fundamentally different ways that each gender explores the world around them? Put me with another composer and a pitcher of beer and I can bat these ideas around with the best of them. One such discussion resulted in the hypothesis that men are much more likely to understand the natural world by slapping a grid over it in order to break it up into tiny parts: approaching it from the outside in. Mapping it. Women however, it was proposed, are much more likely to get inside the natural world and pull something out from it: Excavate. Unearth. One of the implications of this – if taken to its inevitable conclusion – is that my hard-wired patriarchal male brain, along with my longtime love of maps and grids, has contributed to the destruction of the natural world. Quite a load. After realizing I was stuck with the brain I had, I decided to do what I usually do in a no-win situation: try and turn a detriment into an attribute by wearing it like a badge of honor. My piece Gridlock takes the idea of grids and runs away with it. Magnifies it. Downright celebrates it.” (Becker)
flute, oboe, clarinet, trumpet, trombone, tuba, drums/percussion, piano, violin, double bass
Chitwood performed this piece with the West Coast Contemporary Ensemble in her Master’s Recital on 30 April 2010.
Beecher, Lembit:
Stories from My Grandmother – I. It was like, like a Lightening: “Stories From My Grandmother is a two movement suite excerpted from a 50-minute documentary oratorio called And Then I Remember…The first movement, “It was Like a, Like a Lightning,” tries to capture the visceral energy, fear and mournful sadness of one particular story, a portion of which I am including below: And then, was the summer 1940 and I was in Alatskivi with my grandparents. In the evening, there was a dance. About 6’o’clock we left the farm and we went to the castle to dance together. It was about 9:30… the music stopped.. and the announcement came that the Russian troops have come over Lake Peipsi; the Russian army is coming towards this castle, towards us. We ask you all to take your bicycles and go home. And then was Estonia was conquered. 1940, that summer. It was like a, like a lightning, like somebody had hit you on the back. And then we all rode quietly, it was a… June night. The moon was lighting the road, but the hearts were heavy. And we drove home and went to the farm, but the farm was far away from the highway up on the hill. Next morning we were all standing there on the fence under the big linden trees, watching how the Russian army, marched along that highway towards Tartu, towards our city, and this moment we shared together. You know, it seemed that all the dreams were broken.” (Beecher)
flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano
Chitwood performed this piece with the West Coast Contemporary Ensemble in her Master’s Recital on 30 April 2010.
Beeler, Tommy:
Grids:
flute, violin, viola, piano, guitar, bass guitar, percussion, soprano, alto, tenor, bass
Chitwood performed this piece with the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music – Student Staff Ensemble on 13 August 2011.
Beethoven, Ludwig von:
Octet, Opus 103:
2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns
Chitwood performed this piece with the UCSC Wind Quintet and UCSC students in the Fall 2008.
Cage, John:
Third Construction: for four percussionists.
Chitwood performed this piece with the UCSC Percussion Ensemble in her Master’s Recital on 30 April 2010.
Condit-Schultz, Nat:
Pathetic IV. Rondo:
flute, oboe, clarinet, drums, electric guitar, 2 violins, viola, cello, double bass
Chitwood performed this piece in Condit-Shultz’s Senior Recital on 24 February 2010
Farney, Devin:
pixeled: “With pixeled I have attempted to create a piece that is at once amorphous and fragmented. On the grand scale the work unfolds as an evolutionary succession of sounds, while the sounds themselves remain subject to a sort of musical pixelation.” (Farney)
oboe, clarinet, horn, trombone, percussion, piano
Chitwood performed this piece with the West Coast Contemporary Ensemble in her Master’s Recital on 30 April 2010.
Faulk, Alexander:
Vessels Expanded: This minimalist piece is an expansion of Faulk’s earliest work in the style remeniescent of leaders such as Philip Glass, Milton Babbitt, and Steve Reich.
2 violins, 3 high voices, 1 low voice, glockenspiel, piano
Chitwood performed this piece with the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music – Student Staff Ensemble on 13 August 2011.
Hutchinson, Simon:
Touch Lightly:
Chitwood performed this piece with the eXperimental choir on 23 May 2010.
Seales, John:
We are Trees:
Chitwood performed this piece with the eXperimental choir on 23 May 2010.
Sousa, John Philip:
The Fairest of the Fair: This work was composed for the annual Boston Food Fair in 1908. Sousa is said to have written the work for a beautiful girl at the fair, in hopes that she may notice him.
Chitwood performed this piece with the UCSC Wind Ensemble in the Fall 2009 Wind Ensemble Concert.
Stuhlbarg, Rebecca:
Hear Now:
Chitwood performed this piece with the eXperimental choir on 23 May 2010.
Tsadka, Ma’ayan:
Whitacre, Eric:
Sleep (for Concert Band): “I took my time with the piece, crafting it note by note until I felt that it was exactly the way I wanted it. The poem is perfect, truly a gem, and my general approach was to try to get out of the way of the words and let them work their magic.” (Whitacre)
Chitwood performed this piece with the UCSC Wind Ensemble in the Winter 2009 Wind Ensemble Concert.
Williams, Clifton:
Caccia and Chorale: “While it remains open to question whether music can convey any message other than a purely musical one, composers often tend to attempt philosophical, pictorial, or other aspects within a musical framework. Such is the case with Caccia and Chorale, two title words borrowed from Italian because of their allegorical significance. The first, Caccia, means hunt or chase, and is intended to reflect the preoccupation of most people in the world with a constant pursuit of materialism. The Chorale is, by contrast, an urgent and insistent plea for greater humanity, a return to religious or ethical concepts.” (Williams)
Chitwood performed this piece with the UCSC Wind Ensemble in the Fall 2010 Wind Ensemble Concert.
Assistant Conductor:
UCSC Opera Program 2009-2011
2011:
Britten – Albert Herring
Shearer – Riddle Me (Children’s Opera World Premiere)
2010:
Donizetti – Elisir D’Amore
2009:
Mozart – Le Nozze di Figaro
UCSC Orchestra 2008-2011
2011:
Britten – Albert Herring
2010:
Donizetti – Elisir D’Amore
Poulenc – Concerto for Two Pianos
Prokofiev – Classical Symphony
2009:
Mozart – Le Nozze di Figaro
Mozart – Requiem
Mozart – Sinfonia Concertante in E-flat Major for Violin, Viola, and Orchestra
2008:
Orff – Carmina Burana
Pratorius – Through a Crack in the Concrete
UCSC Chamber Singers 2010-2011
2011:
Barber – Reincarnations, The Coolin
Barber – Sure on this Shining Night
Effinger – Four Pastorales
Hogan – The Battle of Jericho
Hogan – I Stood on the River of Jordan
Mathias – Shakespeare Excerpts
Thompson – The American Mercury
Zaimont – Three Ayres, O Mistress Mine
Zaimont – Sunny Airs and Sober
2010:
Britten – A Ceremony of Carols
Patriquin – Traditional French Carols
Poulenc – Quatre motets pour le temps de Noël
News feeds:
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