Z. Randall Stroope

author of "Four Spanish Sonnets on Poetry of Garcilaso de la Vega"

November 4, 2015

Z. Randall Stroope is the director of choral and vocal studies at Oklahoma State University. He is also an American composer, conductor and lecturer on music. He has conducted at Carnegie Hall every year since 2001, conducted the music for mass at the Vatican once a year for the past six years, directed music festivals in Berlin, Rome, Salzburg, Barcelona and Toronto. In the United States, he has conducted at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington National Cathedral, Mormon Tabernacle Choir, Chicago Orchestra Hall and many other venues. His musical compositions sell an average of 260,000 copies per year and are frequently performed on National Public Radio and professional choirs across the world. Dr. Stroope has received many awards at OSU, including the Doug and Nickie Burns Endowed Chair in Choral Music and theRegents Distinguished Research Award.

"Four Spanish Sonnets On Poetry of Garcilaso de la Vega" was written to underscore the significant contribution of Spanish Golden Age author, Garcilaso de la Vega (1503-1536). His poetic output, though not large - only 38 sonnets and a few songs and odes - is so strong in quality that it places him among the finest of the Spanish Renaissance poets. The four poems in this set are written for mixed chorus and piano (or orchestra), and feature long-breathed melodic lines, deep sonorities and rich chordal structures, and a strong marriage of text and music. The work was commissioned by two entities - the Meistersingers of Englewood, Colorado and the Fairfax Choral Arts Society, in Virgina. This work is in Spanish, and has been performed abroad as much as it has been performed in the United States,due to the broad-based appeal of the Spanish language itself, and the very significant contributions and cultural heritage of those of Spanish descent.

URL: https://library.okstate.edu/news/celebratingbooks/2015/randall-stroope

Last Updated: 4 November 2015