Our Director

A Proud History

Since 1997, the Texas Choral Consort (first known as the Texas Chamber Consort), under the leadership and direction of its founder and first artistic director, Dr. Barry Scott Williamson, has provided hundreds of interested singers in Central Texas with quality auditioned and non-auditioned choral performance opportunities.

Dr. Williamson first introduced the concept of the Choral Symposium in 1992 with a performance of Mozart’s Requiem. The Symposium concept was new to the Central Texas area. In the symposiums, Dr. Williamson takes a group of non-auditioned singers, teaches them a major choral work, provides lectures about the composer and the composition and (within only a few weeks’ time) creates a performance choir, as well as a memorable musical experience for both singer and audience. Past symposiums have featured the Requiem, Mass in C Minor, Vesperae solennes de Confessore, and the Coronation Mass by Mozart; St. John Passion and Magnificat by Bach; The Creation, Heilig Mass, Nelson Mass and Theresienmesse by Haydn; Handel’s Messiah; Faure and Durufle’s Requiems; Dvorak’s Stabat Mater; and various opera choruses. Symposium singers have ranged in age from 14 to 84 and all are family, figuratively and literally. Past symposium choruses have included husbands & wives, sisters & brothers, parents & children, and grandparents & grandchildren.

Dr. Williamson has also created several smaller, auditioned choirs, which perform regular fall and spring concerts. And, ensemble groups of various sizes have performed at the Texas State Capitol’s Holiday Tree Lighting Ceremony, the Neill-Cochran House Museum, and the Villa Antonio Twilight Concert Series as well as several local weddings and other community functions. In 2006, 14 year-old Parker Ramsay, National winner of the MTNA Junior Composition Competition, chose Dr. Williamson to provide an ensemble to debut his award-winning composition at the award ceremony.

TCC has sponsored successful international tours including Ireland (2002), Germany and Austria (2004), and Wales (2006). Other TCC collaborations have included Maestro Peter Bay of the Austin Symphony Orchestra; the Austin Children’s Choir; the Galway Choral Association, NUIG Chamber Orchestra, and St. Mary’s Pro-Cathedral Choir of Ireland; the Llandaff Cathedral Choral Society and Welsh Sinfonia of Cardiff, Wales; and Austin composers, Donald Grantham and Patricia Long.

A Bright Future

Over the course of the last six months, the Texas Choral Consort has undertaken a national search for a permanent Artistic Director after Dr. Barry Scott Williamson, the founder and first artistic director of TCC, resigned to accept a position in Hopkinsville Kentucky.

We are pleased to announce that Brent Baldwin has accepted the position of permanent Artistic Director beginning in January. The Mid-Winter Symposium, Viva Vivaldi, on February 8 and 10, will be under his direction. We look forward to his outstanding leadership for many years to come. Arlie Langager, the interim artistic director, has done an outstanding job and we offer her our sincere thanks for her involvement during the past months. Finally, we wish to extend a sincere thank you to the members of the search committee who spent many, many hours conducting the search that resulted in Brent becoming a part of this organization.

Brent Baldwin maintains an active music career as a multi-instrumentalist, vocalist and conductor, performing regularly throughout the U.S. and overseas.

Recent endeavors include conducting symphonic premieres for the Golden Hornet Project and the Barbwire Music Project, collaborating with Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Shulamit Ran of Israel, and directing a wildly eclectic music program at the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Austin. A proponent of new music, Brent has conducted over a dozen world premieres.

Not content to remain within one genre or musical style, Baldwin is also a pianist for the forward-reaching Austin New Music Co-op, and has toured Europe as organist for roots-reggae legend Laurel Aitken. A regular in Austin’s club scene, the Maine native performs as guitarist with the critically-acclaimed pop bands Black Before Red and The Normans.

Baldwin holds a Master’s Degree in conducting from UT, where he studied with the Grammy-nominated Conspirare director, Craig Hella Johnson. He is honored to have been selected to lead the Texas Choral Consort, and looks forward to an exciting future with the group.