2020 Swan Award Winner: Anna Hamre

Professor Emeritus at California State University, Fresno, Anna Hamre serves as Artistic Director of the Fresno Community Chorus, where she conducts the Master Chorale, Coro Piccolo, and Coro Solare. While each ensemble mounts its own performances, the Master Chorale frequently collaborates with the Fresno Philharmonic Orchestra.

Dr. Hamre took over the Fresno Community Chorus in 2002. With the collaborative leadership of an active board, the large ensemble Master Chorale has become the premier symphonic chorus in the Fresno area. In recent years, multiple performances of the Master Chorale have been included by the Fresno Bee in “Top Cultural Arts Events” in the Fresno area. The chamber ensemble Coro Piccolo is most noted for its holiday performances at St. Anne’s Chapel. In 2016, FCC, Inc. added to its organization a new classical choir, Coro Solare, which is designed to rehearse and perform only during daylight hours. The treble-voice ensemble Coro Vox Aeterna was created to perform on the CD Mother of Light, featuring international star Isabel Bayrakdarian, released in 2016.

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In demand as a conductor, adjudicator, presenter, and clinician, Dr. Hamre has accumulated an extensive list of guest engagements, mostly occurring during her 17-year tenure as Director of Choral Activities at Fresno State. She has conducted at Carnegie Hall twice on the MidAmerica series. Her sessions for various choral-conducting and music-education organizations have occurred at the local, state, and national levels. Her articles have appeared in state and regional music magazines, plus the International ChoralBulletin, The Choral Journal, and Spotlight on Teaching Chorus. Her extensive experience conducting choirs in school, church, and community settings has given her the opportunity to conduct numerous new works such as Joungmin Sur’s “Like Streams We Gather,” Anna DeFoe’s “A God and Yet a Man,” Bradley Nelson’s “This Central Garden,” and the American premiere of Philip Wilby’s reconstruction of Mozart’s Mass in C. She has performed with her groups in Mexico, China, Italy, Austria, England, Greece, France and Spain.

Dr. Hamre is the author of The High-School/University Sight-Singer (Masterworks Press), a music literacy method in use in every state plus the District of Columbia, Guam, British Columbia, Hong Kong, and Indonesia. The Weekly Sight-Singer: An Abbreviated and Accelerated Method, was released in the summer 2011.

Dr. Hamre holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in vocal and instrumental music education from Augustana College, Sioux Falls, SD, where she was inducted into their Performing and Visual Arts Hall of Fame in 2017. She earned a Master of Music degree in choral music from the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley and a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in choral literature and performance from the University of Colorado in Boulder.
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Recent honors include the Fresno Arts Council Horizon Artist Award (2007), the California Association for Music Education (CMEA) President’s Award (2013), the CMEA Choral Conductor Award (2006), the CMEA Central Section College/University Music Educator Award (2006), Fresno County Office of Education Roy Klassen Award for Excellence in Choral Music Education (2015), the Fresno State College of Arts and Humanities Excellence in Teaching Award (2003), the Fresno-Madera Counties Music Education Association Choral Educator Award (2003), and recognitions from Fresno State music fraternities.