Isaac Lovdahl, an NDSU doctoral student in choral conducting, recently was named the winner of the prestigious Yale Glee Club Emerging Composers Competition.
Lovdahl will receive $1,500 and travel expenses to New Haven, Connecticut, to attend the premiere performance of the 2021-22 concert season by the Yale Glee Club. He also has an opportunity to have his work published in the Yale Glee Club New Classics Choral Series in the future.
Participants of the contest submitted their musical arrangement with a resume outlining their musical experience and education. Submissions were evaluated by a committee of composers and conductors.
Lovdahl directed high school, church and community choirs in Minnesota after graduating from Concordia College in Moorhead in 2015. He was named the first Challey School of Music Choral Conducting Fellow at NDSU last year.
Lovdahl directs the NDSU tenor/bass choir. His choral compositions and art songs have been performed in the United States, Germany, South Africa and the United Kingdom by educational, community and professional ensembles and soloists.
His distinct hormonic language, detailed attention to natural speech rhythms and high expressive text setting have helped create a niche for him in the world of vocal music. He won the 2017 VocalEssence ReMix composition program and took first place at Minneapolis SongSLAM 2020.
In 2021, he earned the top prize in the Bellevue Chamber Chorus Emerging Composer Competition.
Lovdahl has performed as a member and a featured soloist with The Concordia Choir, The Singers – Minnesota Choral Artists, Minnesota Beethoven Festival Chorale, NDSU Concert Choir, Oratory Bach Ensemble, Vox Nova Chorale, imPulse and Great River Chorale.
Lovdahl’s Yale Glee Club winning composition is titled “Through the great Waters sleep.” He is an NDSU conducting student of professors Jo Ann Miller and Michael Weber.
