Shall We Gather at the River

William Hawley (b. 1950) is one of the central figures in today's American choral music renaissance. As a student at Ithaca College and the California Institute of the Arts, he composed avant-garde instrumental works, and even flirted with minimalism. The launch of his Two Motets in 1981 demonstrated a shift to vocal music and a more emotionally direct style. His continuing American choral music has helped establish compositional trends since adopted by Morten Lauridsen, Eric Whitacre, and the like. Winner: American Prize in Choral Performance and the Margaret Hillis Award.