Fred West Is Retiring after 25 Years with Us
After working with Seattle Peace Chorus for 25 years, Fred West is retiring.
Seattle Peace Chorus honors our fabulous music director as he moves into active retirement. His intimate relationship with creative and high-quality music will certainly continue. We can never thank him enough for his contributions to the development and success of the Seattle Peace Chorus. His dedication and creativity have made a huge difference to us all.
Frederick N. West has directed Seattle Peace Chorus since 2001. Under his leadership, our chorus has provided beautiful music in support of peace and social justice everywhere, with an adventurous mix of multicultural and classical programming. That includes the Vaughan Williams masterpiece, Dona Nobis Pacem; Pablo Neruda’s Canto General composed by Mikis Theodorakis; Missa Luba, a Latin mass set to Congolese rhythms; Rachmaninoff’s All Night Vigil, and Beethoven’s Ode to Joy.
As part of his final concert with us, this June, Fred will reprise one of his grandest compositions, a choral and orchestral rendition of Langston Hughes’ famous poem “Let America Be America Again.”
Fred studied composition with Edwin LaBounty, choral conducting with Robert Scandrett, and instrumental conducting with William Cole at Western Washington University. He participated in conducting workshops with distinguished luminaries including Rodney Eichenberger, Doreen Rao, Weston Noble, and Robert Shaw. Before joining the Seattle Peace Chorus, Fred founded his own Seattle City Cantabile Choir in 1981.
Fred’s choral compositions include the Balkan-inspired Christmas Cantata for strings, hand bells, timpani, and tappan (1987); an environmental oratorio, Upon This Land for winds, celli, four soloists, and percussion (1990); Mass for the Children for choir, bass and soprano soloists, marimbas, cello, flute, and oboe (1998); a setting of the Langston Hughes poem titled Let America Be America Again for brass quintet, choir, baritone soloists, and percussion (2008); Diarmaid and Grainne—a Celtic fable for choir and Irish instruments (2013); and hundreds of shorter works. Perhaps most unusual of his musical adventures has been an annual “OrcaSing” on San Juan Island, which was filmed and broadcast by 60 Minutes and seen by millions of viewers in 2000 and continues to be a rallying cry for environmental stewardship focused on preserving the Salish Sea.
In 2018, the Seattle Peace Chorus commissioned Fred to compose a work for our spring concert to honor the legacy of Native Americans in our time. People of the Drum, scored for choir, strings, and woodwind quintet, featured Haida singer Sondra Segundo-Cunningham, Tulalip storyteller Johnny Moses, and Saanich flutist and drummer Cheoketen. We opened with a Duwamish blessing by elder Edie Loyer Nelson.
During the pandemic years, Fred continued to inspire our songs, mostly on an individual-by-individual basis. At first, we simply conducted zoom rehearsals which evolved into remote pieces and concerts. We worked together online until we had the music down. Then tenor and tech wizard Doug Balcom took our solo renditions—performed in our basements and dining rooms—and put all our faces together on the computer screen in an astonishingly harmonious whole. Throughout, Fred West showed incredible patience and ingenuity at bringing out the best in our singing, under difficult conditions.
As a result of his long friendship and collaboration with Kent Stevenson, a well-known local gospel director, composer, and pianist, our chorus has often presented gospel pieces and concerts celebrating our African American community and Black History. One highlight came in 2022 when our chorus commissioned from Kent and performed Jubilation in my Soul: A Song Gallery of Dynamic Black Lives. The result was uplifting, respectful, and enlightening for all.
Fred has toured the chorus to Venezuela, Chile, Cuba, and our Southwest border states—participating in international choral festivals, and building bridges based on a common love for choral singing. Fred has served on the board of Greater Seattle Choral Consortium. For 42 years, he was also Director of Music for his City Cantabile Choir.
This is only a snapshot of all that Fred West has done for the Seattle Peace Chorus. We wish him the very best in all his future endeavors.
We also hope to maintain close contact with him as we move forward, as we strive to make a changing world a better one for all our listeners.