Newly selected Los Alamos Choral Society Director Steven Paxton. Courtesy photoAfter almost seven months of uncertainty, the Los Alamos Choral Society (LACS) has a new director. Steven Paxton, the unanimous choice of the Choral Society Board of Directors, will take over in late February.
He succeeds Mary Badarak, a popular director at LACS for more than a decade. She decided last spring, at age 70, to cut back on her long commutes from her home in Cochiti Lake to sometimes snowy Los Alamos County and concentrate on her work as artistic director of Santa Fe Music Works.
She retired from Choral Society after the May 28 spring concert, “Popular Favorites from Broadway to Beatles to Badarak and Beyond.” She was honored that day with a reception that drew not only Choral Society members but also most of the audience and many people who had sung under her direction in previous performances.
Choral Society, an amateur organization of 45 to 65 members in recent years, has a long history. It was founded during the Manhattan Project and has compiled an illustrious, unbroken record since that time, singing a wide range of music for a relatively small number of well-qualified directors.
Asked what drew him to LACS, Paxton said, “I’ve known about the Los Alamos Choral Society for many years and have always been impressed with the enthusiasm and energy of the many talented amateur and professional musicians who live in the Los Alamos area. It will be an honor to work with them on performances that honor the long tradition of performing arts in the area, while also breaking new ground and expanding our creative horizons together.”
Paxton and his family live in Santa Fe. He said, “My wife Joy and I moved to Santa Fe in 2003 when I was appointed chair of the music department at the College of Santa Fe. This was after a 25-year stint teaching music composition at Texas Tech University in Lubbock. Joy is a bookkeeper here in Santa Fe. Our two sons and their families live in Austin, Texas.”
Paxton has an excellent educational background in music and a wealth of practical experience.
His four-page resume shows a bachelor’s degree in music (with an emphasis in composition) from the University of North Texas in 1973. He completed a master’s degree in music (composition and voice) from the University of North Texas in 1977, and he earned a doctorate in fine arts (inter-arts collaboration, music composition) from Texas Tech University in 1981.
From 1973 to 1978, he was choral director at Borger High School in Texas. From 1978 to 1979, he was associate director of choirs in the music department at West Texas State University.
From 1981 to 2003, he was on the faculty of the School of Music at Texas Tech, eventually rising to chairman of the composition/theory division. As he summarized it, “composition, electronic music, theory, and directing (the) New Music Ensemble.”
In 2003, he joined the faculty of the Contemporary Music Program at Santa Fe University of Art and Design. He was the department chairman from 2003 to 2015. He summarized his work there with the statement, “music theory, choral ensembles, new music ensembles, (and) composition.”
In recent years, he greatly increased the number of music majors there (from 21 to 105 in one five-year period), and he was involved in a redesign of curriculum, recruitment and hiring of faculty, and the establishment of “strong relationships with area arts organizations.”
He “developed materials for instruction in all music theory courses, including publication of a first-year ‘Musicianship Skills’ textbook.”
And, he said, he, “Increased exposure for student and faculty ensembles by scheduling performances in public venues throughout the Santa Fe region (Lensic Performing Arts Center, El Museo Cultural, San Miguel Mission, Cathedral Basilica of Santa Fe, St. Francis Auditorium, Santa Fe Farmers’ Market, Santa Fe Renaissance Fair at Las Golondrinas, DeVargas Mall, Santa Fe High School, area retirement centers, Warehouse 21, the University of New Mexico, and Tricklock Performance Laboratory).”
His earlier work at the university, his publications, the honors he has received, and his guest appearances as a composer fill more than another page.
Unfortunately, the Santa Fe University of Arts and Design recently closed, after a long struggle.
From 2009 to 2010, he served as director of choirs at Moriarty, N.M., High School and Middle School.
He was recommended to the Choral Society Board by Badarak, and he interviewed with the board members this fall. One of the many questions the board asked him involved his favorites in music. He said he is most fond of classical music, but he also likes a wide variety of other kinds of music—notably folk music and the music of other countries.
He and board members planned to meet this week to discuss the music that the Choral Society will perform in its 2018 spring concert.
Meanwhile, the Board of Directors hired an outstanding Los Alamos musician, Tjett Gerdom, who offered to direct Choral Society for a few months and prepare just one work: Carl Orff’s “Carmina Burana”. (Gerdom did not apply for the director’s position.)
“Carmina Burana” is scheduled for presentation at 8 p.m. on Feb. 10 in Duane Smith Auditorium in Los Alamos. (The auditorium, however, is undergoing renovation, and the construction work may not be completed in time for this scheduled concert. Watch the news, if necessary, for changes in the performance time and place.) Choral Society will be joined in this performance by Los Alamos High School’s “Schola Cantorum” (state champion choir for two of the last three years), and by the Los Alamos Symphony Orchestra.
There will be three guest soloists: Jenifer Perez, a soprano who has performed with the Santa Fe Opera; Jason Rutledge, a tenor who is choir director at the Los Alamos Public Schools; and Paul Bower, a baritone who is executive director of New Mexico Young Actors, Inc.
