Daniel Mahraun will conduct “Requiem for the Living” at the Hilo Community Chorus upcoming Spring Concert.
Hilo Community Chorus Music Director Tom McAlexander will conduct the Cherubini requiem. While Mr Mahraun is conducting the Forrest requiem, Mr McAlexander will join the tenor section to sing in the chorus. While Mr McAlexander is conducting the Cherubini requiem, Mr Mahraun will join the baritone section to sing in the chorus.
Daniel A. Mahraun is a choral conductor and editor/arranger of music for choirs. As a lyric baritone, he devotes his time to oratorio, art song, and choral singing, especially of early music. He currently serves as choir director at the Lutheran Church of the Holy Trinity in Kailua-Kona, Hawai’i.
In his most recent academic appointment, he served as Director of Choral Activities at Minnesota State University Moorhead. In that capacity, he conducted the Concert Choir, Festival Women’s Choir and Draco Voces Men’s Choir, and taught voice and conducting. Previously, Dr. Mahraun spent two seasons as a full-time member of the St. Paul-based, early music group The Rose Ensemble. He can be heard on the Rose’s 2014 CD, A Toast To Prohibition.
For ten years prior, Dr. Mahraun was Director of Choral Activities at Bethany College (Lindsborg, Kan.) and held the Elmer F. Pierson Distinguished Professorship in Music. During that same time, he served as Music Director of the Bethany Oratorio Society, conducting the renowned Society’s annual performances of Handel’s Messiah on Palm Sunday and Easter, and Bach’s St. Matthew Passion on Good Friday. Inspired in part by that work, his article “What Language Shall I Borrow?: Singing in Translation” appeared in the May 2016 issue of the Choral Journal, the official publication of the American Choral Directors Association.
Mahraun holds a BME from Wartburg College (Waverly, Ia.), master’s degrees in conducting and performance from the University of Northern Iowa, and a DMA in the literature and performance of choral music from the University of Colorado at Boulder.