STEVEN SAMETZ is the Ronald J. Ulrich Professor of Music at Lehigh University and this year marks his 25th season as Artistic Director of The Princeton Singers. Dr. Sametz has appeared as guest conductor with the New York Chamber Symphony, the Taipei Philharmonic Foundation, the Santa Fe Desert Chorale, the Berkshire Music Festival and the Netherlands Radio Choir. He recently made his Carnegie Hall début, conducting Lehigh Choral Arts in his choral symphony, Carmina amoris.

 

​Active as a composer, Sametz has been hailed as “one of the most respected choral composers in America.” He has been commissioned to create works for Chanticleer, The Princeton Singers, the Dale Warland Singers, the National Cathedral, the Los Angeles Master Chorale, the Rioult Dance Company, and the King of Thailand. Dr. Sametz’s compositions have been heard throughout the world at the Tanglewood, Ravinia, Salzburg, Schleswig-Holstein, and Santa Fe music festivals. In 2013, he received a major award to compose A Child's Requiem, dedicated to the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School killings of 2012. This was premiered in March of 2015, and performed at Lehigh by The Princeton Singers with Lehigh University Choral Arts in October of that year. The press surrounding this award and the commissioned work, A Child’s Requiem, has included international coverage by the Associated Press and CBS Evening News. He is the recipient of the American Choral Director Association’s Raymond Brock Memorial Commission and he serves as the American Choral Directors Association’s national advisor on composition.

 

Sametz is the founding director of the biennial Lehigh University Summer Choral Composers’ Forum, a weeklong intensive training seminar dedicated to fostering new choral voices in America. In 2013, Sametz was named to the Fulbright Specialist Program, the first Lehigh professor to be so honored, and toured China teaching as a Fulbright Specialist. His works have been recorded by The Princeton Singers and on Chanticleer CDs, including the Grammy Award-winning, Colors of Love.

 

His A Child’s Requiem, dedicated to the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School killings of 2012, premiered in 2015 and was performed and recorded by The Princeton Singers with Princeton Girlchoir.  In Spring of 2017, The Princeton Singers released their latest recording, To the Stars–Choral Works of Steven Sametz, including many works written specifically for The Princeton Singers.

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His website can be found at www.stevensametz.com.