Santa Fe Women's Ensemble

41st Season Commissioned Composer

Composer Linda Rice Beck is a native of Las Vegas, NM, and graduated from the University of Akron, OH. Her music is published by Fred Bock Music (Hal Leonard) and National Music Publishers, and she is a member of the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP). Besides composing, Linda also sings soprano with the Santa Fe Women’s Ensemble and First Presbyterian Chancel Choir, and she plays handbells in the Chancel Bell Choir. 

Linda has done graduate study in composition with Dr. Samuel Gordon at the University of Akron, from which she received two Outstanding Artistic Achievement Awards for her compositions.

Linda's music has been commissioned by community, university and church choirs, and performed throughout the U.S. and in Europe, including Rome at the Vatican church, Santa Maria Maggiore (Pie Jesu from the Requiem). Her O Sacrum Convivium was sung at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi in Santa Fe for both the 400th anniversary celebrations and the 50th anniversary celebration for Archbishop Sheehan in July 2014. Her Requiem has been performed numerous times, most recently in Nashville, TN, in November 2018.

Linda was the 2008–09 commissioned composer for the Santa Fe Women’s Ensemble and was commissioned by Ensemble singers Sue Katz and Mickey Bond in 2014 to write Words of Peace. She is extremely honored to have been chosen for this third commission, and she is deeply grateful for the opportunity to set to music the beautiful poetry of Raymond Raney.

Other commissions include those for New Mexico Highlands University; the Sangre de Cristo Chorale, Santa Fe; First Christian Church, Cuyahoga Falls, OH; the Durango Women’s Choir, Durango, CO; Northwoods Presbyterian Church, Houston, TX; St. Bede's Episcopal Church, Santa Fe; and most recently the Durango Choral Society, Durango, CO, in honor of their 50th season this year (premiered December 8, 2019). 

Linda is very active in the musical life of Santa Fe as a singer, composer and patron. She and her husband, Jim, have two sons and two grandchildren.

Raymond Raney - Poet

Raymond Raney describes his lifelong love affair with poetry this way: “I write. I have been writing since the fifth grade. But I’ve always thought of myself as a poet. Not that I’m published, but that has been my choice. I write for myself and for those for whom I write my poetry. I decided to share a small selection of poems with Linda Rice Beck as possible texts for her compositions for the Santa Fe Women’s Ensemble. I was humbled when she thought they were worth her attention. 

“My formal higher education began with a major in English literature with an emphasis on creative writing, but journalism became my second major, and soon I was writing for a living. However, poetry was the constant, a way of apprehending feelings and focusing myself. 

“I worked as a journalist for 15 years and came to Santa Fe as news editor at the Santa Fe New Mexican. When that career path ended, I moved my focus to the visual arts and received degrees in art history and photography, and taught media studies at the University of New Mexico and Santa Fe Community College. After 12 years, I answered the call to ministry and was ordained as an Episcopal priest in 2006. 

“As I contemplate retirement this year, I find my heart returning to poetry, and this collaboration with Linda Beck has opened a new possibility for my own expression.”

photo by John Bellars

As a composer, conductor and singer, Bob Chilcott has enjoyed a lifelong association with choral music, first as a chorister and choral scholar in the choir of King’s College, Cambridge, and for 12 years as a member of the King’s Singers. He became a full-time composer in 1997, and he has produced a large catalogue of music for all types of choirs, which is published by Oxford University Press.

His most often performed pieces include Can You Hear Me?, A Little Jazz Mass, Requiem and the St John Passion. In March 2021, Songs My Heart Has Taught Me received its world première from the BBC Singers in a virtual ACDA National Convention. Other newly commissioned works receiving their world premières in 2021 include A Song of Harvest for the Royal School of Church Music, Pear Tree Carol for Birmingham University Singers, and Our Roots for the Santa Fe Women’s Ensemble.

Bob has conducted choirs in more than 30 countries worldwide and has worked with many thousands of amateur singers across the UK in a continuing series of “Singing Days.” For seven years he was conductor of the Chorus of the Royal College of Music in London, and since 2002 he has been principal guest conductor of the BBC Singers. In 2017, he was awarded an Honorary Fellowship by the Royal School of Church Music, and in 2019 he took up the role of principal conductor with Birmingham University Singers.

Bob’s music has been widely recorded by leading British choirs and groups, including the King’s Singers; King’s College, Cambridge; Wells Cathedral; Westminster Abbey; the Sixteen; Tenebrae; the BBC Singers; the Bach Choir; Commotio and Ora. In 2016, he enjoyed a collaboration with the celebrated singer Katie Melua on the album In Winter. In 2017, two new discs were released by Commotio and Choralis: All Good Things on Naxos and In Winter’s Arms on Signum, his first recording collaboration with an American choir. Newer recording projects are with the BBC Singers, Houston Chamber Choir and Wroclaw Philharmonic Choir.

Delphine Chalmers studied English at Worcester College, Oxford, and while still a student she collaborated with Bob Chilcott and John Rutter, providing the text for a range of choral works. In her poetry used for our commission piece, “Our Roots,” Delphine has explored themes of inclusivity, identity and unity, sharing her passion for the internal music of poetry.