Dale Trumbore has been winning music composition contests since she was 16. The Chatham Borough native, now 22, is well on her way to becoming a force in the choral and classical music worlds.
A choral piece she composed, Est autem fides credere, was to be performed April 25 in Manhattan at the fourth Festival of Universal Sacred Music. The piece was among twelve selected through a contest sponsored by the Society for Universal Sacred Music. More than 260 composers worldwide entered the competition.
A 2009 graduate of the University of Maryland, Trumbore moved to Los Angeles last year to pursue a master’s degree in music composition at the University of Southern California. An accomplished pianist and a soprano choral singer, she was selected for the elite USC Chamber Singers. Her first assignment with the group was performing on Andrea Bocelli’s My Christmas, a PBS special that aired in December. The show was taped in Hollywood shortly after Trumbore started school last fall. “It was odd singing Christmas carols in September, let alone in sunny Los Angeles,” says Trumbore, a 2005 Chatham High School graduate.
Trumbore has composed not only for choral groups but also for piano, solo voice, and chamber music groups. She got her first taste of glory at 16, when she won a National Federation of Music Clubs’ composition contest. A year later, she won a composition contest sponsored by the Morristown–based Harmonium Choral Society. Most recently, Chatham Township-based Lyrica Chamber Music named her the winner of its composition contest for her string quartet piece titled How It Will Go. The Neave Quartet performed the piece in December at the Presbyterian Church of Chatham Township.
“It was so exciting to hear my music performed in New Jersey again,” says Trumbore, who flew home for the event.
Her latest challenge: She’s begun writing her first piano concerto.