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Edwin Fissinger Choral Composition Competition

The NDSU Challey School of Music honors the legacy and traditions of noted choral composer and long-time NDSU choral conductor Edwin Fissinger with its annual choral composition competition.


2024 COMPETITION WINNERS

The NDSU Challey School of Music is thrilled to announce Steve J. Sandberg as the First Prize Winner and Zebulon M. Highben as the Second Prize Winner of the 2024 Edwin Fissinger Choral Composition Competition! Learn more about these composers below.

Steve J. Sandberg

2024 FIRST PRIZE WINNER
Time Always Shows You Your Own Heart

Steve J. Sandberg is a retired music educator who taught all age levels, from elementary to college level and adult. He directed high school choir for 13 years in Mountain Iron, St. Peter and Hastings High Schools in MN, and served on the voice faculties of St. Olaf College, Bethel College, Northwestern University St. Paul, and North Central University.

He received his B.A. in music education from St. Olaf College and a M.M. in vocal performance from the University of Minnesota. His lifelong involvement in quality and professional choral performance has nurtured his instinctively vocal compositional style.  Listeners have described the range of his work from “powerful and sensitive” to “deeply contemplative” and “profound.” 

He has extensive choral experience in The Dale Warland Singers, The St. Paul Chamber Orchestra Chorale, The Minnesota Beethoven Festival Chorale, and the chorus of The Minnesota Opera; and currently performs in The Singers: Minnesota Choral Artists and acts as tenor section leader, and Exultate Chamber Choir, of which he is section leader and Assistant Conductor. His music has been published by G. Schirmer, Carl Fischer Music, Neil A. Kjos Music Company, and Canasg Music (Edinburgh, Scotland.)

Zebulon M. Highben

2024 SECOND PRIZE WINNER
Let There Be Singing

A conductor, composer, and scholar of sacred music, Dr. Zebulon M. Highben serves as Director of Chapel Music at Duke University Chapel and as Associate Professor of the Practice of Church Music at Duke Divinity School. He conducts the Duke University Chapel Choir and the Duke Chapel Schola Cantorum, edits the Music from Duke Chapel choral series, teaches courses in music and liturgy, and oversees the Chapel’s extensive music program, which connects students, community members, staff singers, instrumentalists, and professional colleagues in myriad worship services and concerts.

Prior to his appointments at Duke, Zebulon was Associate Professor of Music and Director of Choral Activities at Muskingum University. He also taught at the University of Wisconsin River Falls, Luther Seminary, and Michigan State University, where he was a graduate teaching assistant in both the choral and musicology departments. He has served as a church musician in Lutheran, Presbyterian, and Methodist congregations in Ohio, Minnesota, and Michigan. From 2005-2014, he was the Paul Bouman Endowed Chapel Choir Director at the Lutheran Summer Music Academy.

Choirs under Zebulon’s direction have been featured at numerous conferences and festivals, including ACDA of Minnesota and North Carolina, the Ohio Choral Directors Association, the Ohio Music Education Association, and the St. Olaf College Choral Festival. Domestic and international tours have included concerts or worship services in Washington National Cathedral, Fourth Presbyterian Church (Chicago), St. Paul’s Cathedral (London), St. Giles’ Cathedral (Edinburgh), the Gedächtniskirche (Berlin), and the Thomaskirche (Leipzig).  He has served as a guest conductor, clinician, and lecturer across the United States, and in 2016 represented the U.S. in ACDA’s International Conductors Exchange Program with South Korea. In 2015, he won The Dale Warland Award in Choral Conducting (College/University Division) from The American Prize.

As a composer, Zebulon is frequently commissioned by churches, schools, and arts organizations. More than seventy of his choral compositions, hymns, and liturgical pieces are published by eight major domestic publishing houses (Augsburg Fortress, Boosey & Hawkes, Colla Voce, E.C. Schirmer, GIA, Kjos, MorningStar, Santa Barbara) and by Gehrmans Musikförlag in Sweden. Compositional honors include awards from the American Composers Forum, the American Harp Society, The American Prize, the Association of Lutheran Church Musicians, ASCAP, the Bach Choir (UK), and the Hymn Society in the United States and Canada.

His research and writing has been published in the Choral Journal, the Bulletin for the Council on Research in Music Education, CrossAccent, The Hymn, and TRIAD.  He compiled and edited the Augsburg Motet Book (2013), the Augsburg Chorale Book (2017), and co-edited With a Voice of Singing: Essays on Children, Choirs, and Music in the Church, a Festschrift in honor of Ronald A. Nelson. Zebulon also contributed to the fourth and fifth volumes of Teaching Music Through Performance in Choir and is a frequent contributor to the Sundays & Seasons and Prelude Music Planner worship resources. 

A native of Ohio, Zebulon studied music education at Ohio State University, graduating magna cum laude and with departmental distinction. He earned the Master of Sacred Music from Luther Seminary with St. Olaf College, and the Doctor of Musical Arts from Michigan State University, where he was a recipient of both the Charles K. Smith Fellowship in Choral Conducting and the Robert A. Harris Award for Excellence in Choral Performance. His primary teachers include Hilary Apfelstadt, Anton Armstrong, James Gallagher, David Rayl, Jonathan Reed, Robert Scholz, and Sandra Snow (conducting); David Cherwien and Ronald A. Nelson (composition); and John Ferguson and Paul Westermeyer (church music). Zebulon is an ordained deacon in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

About the Competition

Guidelines

Entries should be:

  • For mixed choir (SATB), divisi is acceptable.
  • Unaccompanied, or with keyboard accompaniment, obbligato instruments are OK.
  • Three to eight minutes in duration.
  • Original and unpublished (by an established commercial firm) works only. Arrangements will not be accepted.
  • Text may be sacred or secular, either in the public domain or copyrighted, as long as a letter of permission from the copyright owner is included with the submission.
  • Suitable for an accomplished high school or university choir.
  • Submissions need not be anonymous.

Prizes / Performances for Each Category

  • First: $1,500
  • Second: $1,000
  • NDSU reserves the right to not award prizes in any given year.
  • The first-place composer is invited to be present at the NDSU Concert Choir performance.
  • For the performance, NDSU will reimburse actual travel, lodging and food expenses, up to a maximum of $1,000.
  • Winners will be announced on the Challey School of Music’s website by February 1, 2025.
  • The first prize winner’s piece, with the approval of the composer, will have their composition considered for publication in Pavane Publishing for placement in the Jo Ann Miller Choral Series.

Judging Panel

  • Jo Ann Miller, Director Emerita of Choral Activities, NDSU
  • Dwight Jilek, Director of Choral Activities, NDSU
  • Michael Weber, Associate Director of Choral Activities, NDSU
  • Charlette Moe, Assistant Director of Choral Activities and Music Education, NDSU
  • Jocelyn Hagen, Composer, Graphite Publishing
  • Allan Petker, Pavane Publishing, composer, conductor

Submission Guidelines

  • Email PDF submissions and audio files to Michael Weber: m.weber@ndsu.edu
  • Please include your name and mobile telephone number.
  • There is a $25 submission fee for each work submitted. Money from the fees will be used to support the prizes and travel expenses for the winning composer. Click here to access the online payment portal.
  • Submitted scores must be in Finale or Sibelius.
  • An audio file is strongly recommended.
  • All scores selected for performance will be reproduced by NDSU.
  • Submissions must be submitted via email by 11:59 PM on November 1, 2024.

Past Fissinger Choral Competition Recipients

Read about previous winners of the Edwin Fissinger Choral Composition Competition here.