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Saint Tikhon’s Monastery and Seminary are proud to announce that their music director, Benedict Sheehan, played key roles in two of the 2019 GRAMMY®-nominated projects for “Best Choral Performance” as announced on Friday, December 7, 2018.
The Clarion Choir’s recently released disc, Kastalsky: Memory Eternal, was one of this year’s nominees. Sheehan worked closely with Clarion music director Steven Fox on every phase of this project from its inception in 2016 to its culmination in the premiere of the fully orchestrated version of the work in the Washington National Cathedral this past October.
Clarion’s recording of Memory Eternal to the Fallen Heroes (1917), the a cappella version of the larger work, is the world premiere recording of Alexander Kastalsky’s masterful composition that commemorates the Allied forces slain in the First World War. Sheehan, who is credited as Associate Conductor on this release, also helped finalize scores for recording and was primary music editor for one of the stand-alone pieces on the album, Kastalsky’s never-before-recorded From My Youth (1905).
The PaTRAM Institute Male Choir’s disc, Teach Me Thy Statutes, was another of this year’s nominees. The disc also received Music Web International’s prestigious award for Recording of the Year. Sheehan, along with Saint Tikhon’s Bookstore Manager Priest Mikel Hill, were chorus members on this project, which was recorded in 2016 in Saratov, Russia under the direction of Vladimir Gorbik. Sheehan is a co-founder of the PaTRAM Institute, together with Maestro Gorbik and CEO Alexis Lukianov. He helped organize the choir’s debut concert tour and first series of masterclasses—many of which were hosted by Saint Tikhon’s.
In 2019, Sheehan will conduct a combined choir of the Chamber Choir of Saint Tikhon’s Monastery, the PaTRAM Institute Singers, and the Saint Tikhon’s Festival Choir in the world premiere of his own Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom (2018), a piece commissioned by the PaTRAM Institute. He will also conduct the mixed choir for PaTRAM’s 2019 Summer Academy in Lakewood, NJ.
Sheehan also has close ties to yet a third GRAMMY® nominee this year for “Best Choral Performance.” The Boston-based Skylark Vocal Ensemble, led by conductor Matthew Guard, was nominated for their album Seven Words from the Cross. Sheehan is currently working with Skylark to compose music for their upcoming “Once Upon a Time” program, based on the Grimm Brothers’ Snow White and Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid. The project will be premiered and recorded by Skylark in June of 2019.
