Robert De Cormier
Robert De Cormier (aka Bob Corman) (born January 7, 1922) is an American musical conductor, arranger, and director, and a graduate of the Juilliard School. He has arranged music for many singers and groups, including Harry Belafonte and Peter, Paul, and Mary, and has worked with Milt Okun.
Robert De Cormier has composed music for chorus as well as ballet and Broadway scores, but is perhaps most famous for his spiritual arrangements.[citation needed]. His ballet score Rainbow ‘Round My Shoulder is in the active repertoire of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. He has directed concerts and recordings for television specials, and was choral director for a television special and recording starring Jessye Norman and Kathleen Battle, conducted by James Levine.
Robert DeCormier was Music Director and Conductor of the New York Choral Society from 1970–1987 and is a Music Director Emeritus. In 1993, DeCormier helped to found the Vermont Symphony Orchestra Chorus, and remains its director. He founded Counterpoint, a Vermont-based choral group which consists of eleven members, and conducted music for the opera Der Kaiser von Atlantis, or The Emperor of Atlantis, and Brundibár. He has also recorded several Christmas albums with his choral group, The Robert DeCormier Singers.
DeCormier has served on the New York State Council on the Arts, and has been a member of the choral panel for the National Endowment for the Arts. He was presented the 2002 Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts by the Vermont Arts Council, Lifetime Achievement Awards from the New York Choral Society and Choral Arts New England, an Honorary Doctor of Arts degree from Middlebury College in 2007, and was awarded an honorary degree from the University of Vermont in 2012.
DeCormier taught a class at Saint Michael's College (Colchester, VT) entitled "Songs of Resistance: Music in Struggle" in the spring semester of 2008. Recently DeCormier conducted at the Vermont International Music Festival in the summer of 2009. In the Winter of 2012 he directed the Chorus at the Vermont High School Honors Music Festival held at Castleton State College.
Source: Wikipedia
