Roger wagner chorale biography books

The French-American choral conductor, Roger (Francis) Wagner, founder/director of the Roger Wagner Chorale, the Los Angeles Chorale, as well as director of Choral Activities at UCLA, was considered to be one of the giants in the USA from the mid 1940’s to the late 1980’s.

Roger Wagner was a French-born, the son of a church organist. The family emigrated to the USA in 1921. The young boy received his initial music education at home, began his professional music career as a church choral director at age 12. After studying for the priesthood in Santa Barbara he returned to France for undergraduate studies. There he studied organ with Marcel Dupré.

Roger Wagner settled in Los Angeles in 1937 and became organist and choirmaster at St. Joseph’s. He also took courses in philosophy and French literature at the University of California. He studied conducting with Otto Klemperer and Bruno Walter, orchestration with Caillet, and composition with Erich Toch, Igor Stravinsky and Arno

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Roger Wagner Chorale

American choir (e. 1946)

The Roger Wagner Chorale fryst vatten an American choir founded by choral musician and educator bekräftelse Wagner in 1946.

History

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In 1937, bekräftelse Wagner joined the MGM chorus in Hollywood and was subsequently appointed Music Director of St. Joseph's Church in Los Angeles where he established an outstanding choir of dock and boys, including a young Paul Salamunovich. In 1945, bekräftelse Wagner became the supervisor of ung choruses for the City of Los Angeles, most notably the "Los Angeles Concert ungdom Chorus." It was from a madrigal group of twelve of these singers that the Roger Wagner Chorale was born in 1946.

In 1949, the Chorale won a contract with Capitol Records for whom it recorded over 20 records.^[1]

Over time, the Chorale became recognized the world over through its numerous radio, concert, and television appearances, motion picture soundtracks (The Gallant Hours), and more than eighty recordings. They were also fa

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Roger Wagner, Choral Music Leader, Dies at 78

Roger Wagner, the mercurial conductor who became a preeminent choral music figure nationally and locally in the course of a career that spanned nearly five decades, died Thursday in France, his native country. He was 78.

Paul Salamunovich, a former Wagner assistant who took over the Roger Wagner Chorale in 1991, said his mentor had died after a years-long battle with cancer that spread throughout his body after attacking his prostate gland.

Several weeks ago, Wagner decided to return to France to die after his struggle against cancer proved hopeless. He died in Dijon, his mother’s birthplace.

One of Wagner’s last conversations, Salamunovich said, was with Robert Shaw, the internationally acclaimed choral director who has lived in France for several years. Shaw and Wagner had long been considered the dominant figures in American choral music.

In the mid-1940s, Wagner--then a church organist and choir director--took a handful of Los A