Tim Koch serves his seventh season as Music Director and Conductor of the Carolina Master Chorale in 2006-2007. His tenure has been marked by notable growth in artistic achievement, extensive touring, acclaimed performances of the masterworks for chorus and orchestra, commissioning of numerous major new works, formation of the Carolina Master Youth Chorale, and expanded educational programming.

Koch has led the CMC in tour performances throughout Italy in 2003, and Denmark, Germany, and the Czech Republic in 2005. In South Carolina, Koch and the CMC have presented acclaimed performances of the Mozart and Brahms Requiems, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, and Beethoven’s Mass in C. Koch has prepared the CMC for performances of Verdi’s Requiem and Stabat Mater, the Poulenc Gloria, and Shoenberg’s Survivor from Warsaw, among others. Koch and the CMC embraced a new genre in 2006 with a full concert performance of Bizet’s beloved opera Carmen. The great opera repertory will now be regularly represented in future season programming. He has forged collaborations with the Long Bay Symphony and South Carolina Philharmonic Orchestras, conductors Charles Jones Evans, Nicholas Smith, Donaled Neuen, Robert Page, and Andre Thomas, Viennese baritone, Benno Schollum, and internationally renowned mezzo-soprano Kirstin Chavez.

Teamed with CMC composer-in-residence Andrew Fowler, Koch is approaching a dozen premieres of important new works by the composer. The 2006-2007 season features three such premieres, including Fowler’s most important work to date, Directions for Singing, a 45-minute work for chorus, orchestra, narrator, and soprano and baritone soloists. Members of the CMC will participate in the world premiere of this work in February 2007 at New York’s Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center, under the baton of world-renowned choral maestro, Eph Ehly.

As founder/music director of the professional Carolina Chamber Chorale (also known as the Tim Koch Singers), Koch inspired widespread artistic achievement, including five commercial recordings on the Albany and Naxos/Milken Archive labels. His work with that ensemble has been lauded by Gramophone Magazine, “a wonderful compendium of finely-judged performances," the Charleston Post and Courier, “You have not heard anything like this. Ever.," and American Composer Samuel Adler, “the finest professional choir in America."

Koch holds degrees from Illinois Wesleyan University and the University of Illinois and the Doctor of Musical Arts from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. He has taught on the faculties of the Eastman School of Music, Syracuse University, the University of Southern Mississippi, where in 1998 he was chosen as the sole USM recipient of the Mississippi legislature’s HEADWAE award, the University of South Carolina, and the College of Charleston. He is married to Grand Strand native and CMC member Jo Nell (Brown) Koch. He also serves the community as Music Director at First United Methodist Church, Myrtle Beach and as an oceanfront real estate professional with Century 21 Boling and Associates.

Accompanist and Composer-In-Residence

Andrew Fowler, accompanist and composer-in-residence for the Carolina Master Chorale, is a native of Myrtle Beach. He received the M.M. and B.A. degrees from the University of South Carolina, and the PhD from the University of Texas at Austin. Fowler has served on the faculties of Auburn University at Montgomery, Cornell College, the University of North Texas, and the University of Texas at Austin, where he taught theory, history, and counterpoint. While at Auburn University at Montgomery and at Cornell College, he also served as Director of Choral Activities. He is currently Music Director at Trinity United Methodist Church in Conway, and also is Financial Development Coordinator for the Carolina Master Chorale.

His articles on 19^th century piano repertoire have appeared in various music journals. His choral compositions have been published by Augsburg, Abingdon, and Roger Dean Publishing Companies. His collaborative work Schul at Ulla (with visual artist Hugh Lifson) was performed at the Nobel Conference on Peace at Luther College, Decora, Iowa, in 1999. His interest in state and local history has led to the creation of works such as the song cycle Mary Chestnut’s Diaries (for Soprono/Piano), Lowcountry Tales (for mixed chorus and piano) and Tales of the Kings Highway (premiered by the Long Bay Symphony Orchestra in February 2004). Fowler has composed for musical theater and stage venues. As a pianist, he has presented lecture/recital performances of masterworks by Liszt, Schumann, and others of the mid-nineteenth central European school throughout the United States. Also, he is an avid interpreter of the 20^th c. American jazz standards.

Fowler’s works written specifically for he Carolina Master Chorale include Dayspring (2001), Olde World Carols (2002), Antiphonal Noels (2003), Lowcountry Tales (2003), Christmas Carmina (2004), Songs of Travel (2005) and Wintertide (2005).

During this year’s 2006-07 season, three more works will receive premieres. The first concert will feature Over Yonder’s Ocean (for mixed chorus, soloists, and chamber orchestra), based on original Murrells Inlet spirituals. The holday concert will present An Outbreak of Peace (for mixed chorus, soloist, brass and percussion), a musico-narrrative recounting the remarkable Christmas truce of 1914. Directions for Singing (for mixed chorus, soloists, and orchestra) will receive its world premiere at Avery Fisher Hall in Lincoln Center on February 18, 2007, on the occasion of the 300^th anniversary of Charles Wesley’s birth. The work at the CMC’s Lincoln Center concert will be reprised at Wheelwright Auditorium on March 17, 2007.