2013 Swan Award Winner: Rich Messenger

Richard Messenger is a graduate of Hastings College (Nebraska) and did graduate work at the University of Iowa and at California State University, Fullerton. He taught at the high school and community college level in Iowa for seven years before moving to California in 1976 to study with Howard Swan at CSUF. In addition to Dr. Swan, he counts as mentors Daniel Moe, Deral Johnson, Weston Noble, and John Alexander. He is retired from the position of Choral Music Director at Irvine High School (Irvine, CA) where he taught from 1977 – 2010. He has served as an adjunct professor of music at California State University at Long Beach and at Vanguard University in Costa Mesa. In 2000, he became the Director of Music at St. Mark Presbyterian Church in Newport Beach. 

Under his direction, the Irvine High School Chorale performed in festival choirs at Carnegie Hall in 1995, 1999, 2005, and in 2009. In the 2005 appearance, they were selected to give the featured choir performance at which the choir premiered “And the Night Shall Be Filled With Music”, written for them by composer Peter Boyer. The IHS Chorale was invited to return to give the featured choir performance at a festival at Carnegie Hall in 2009. In the summer of 2003, the Chorale accepted an invitation to perform the music of Eric Whitacre in Berlin, performing under the composer’s direction. Irvine High School choirs appeared onstage with Pacific Symphony Orchestra at the Orange County Performing Arts Center on numerous occasions. 

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