Joseph J. Amante y Zapata

Office Hours

*email to schedule an appointment

MUSC 1165-602 History of Rock online
MUSC 1165-606 History of Rock online
MUSC 1220H Chamber Singers
MUSC 1210H Chorus
https://fb.watch/hJKJwQIrO5/

My email address at Roger Williams University is: [email protected]

Bio

Dr. Joseph Amante y Zapata is chair of the Performing Arts Department at CCRI, where, as director of choral activities, he conducts both the CCRI Chamber Singers and Chorus. He is an adjunct instructor of Latin and Caribbean music history and is past director of Chorus at Roger Williams University.  Amante's choirs have participated in choral competitions and festivals at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, with the Boston Pro Musica in Boston, MA, and at New York’s Carnegie Hall. His choral interests include music of the Viceroyalty of New Spain, of which he has transcribed several Salve Reginas and Magnificats, and other Spanish works.  A current project involves the co-editing of Handel's Messiah into a Spanish performance score.

He is the recipient of a scholarship from the Herb Alpert Foundation, an Administrative Fellow of Harvard University and received a grant from the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies.  While in college, he sang in choirs under Robert Shaw, Zubin Mehta, Rafael Kubelick, Alfred Schnittke, Riccardo Muti (see), and played percussion under John Cage.

Amante has studied with Joseph Flummerfelt, James H. Vail, Rodney Eichenberger, John Glenn Paton, Morton Lauridsen, John Moriarty and Daniel Pinkham. He has also performed orchestral work with Hans Beer, Pascal Verrot, Carl St. Clair and Leonard Bernstein at Seranak (Tanglewood).

Dr. Amante has been an officer of the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA), both in California and Massachusetts, and is past president of Rhode Island ACDA. He has been an accompanist for music instructors as well as a part-time pianist and vocal soloist at various churches throughout Rhode Island and Massachusetts.  He is a violist and assistant music director of the Ocean State Pops Orchestra (OSPO), mandolist and assistant conductor of L'Esperance Mandolin Ensemble, as well as community member-at-large for Narragansett Bay Symphony Community Orchestra (NaBSCO) and new board member of Ensemble Altera.

A native of San Diego, CA, Dr. Amante moved to New England to pursue his master’s degree in Choral Conducting at New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. He met his wife, Terry, while living there. His family came to South Kingstown, Rhode Island in 2001, when she became a professor at the School of Education at URI.

Fun fact, Dr. Amante is the great grand-nephew of the Mexican revolutionary, Emiliano Zapata.

Education

• D.M.A. major in Choral Music (minor in Vocal Pedagogy) 2002
  • University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
  • Treatise: Sacred choral music in Colonial Mexico, 1650-1750: An Introduction
  • Awarded: Herb Alpert Scholarship for Emerging Young Artists
• M.M. in Choral Conducting 1989
  • New England Conservatory of Music, Boston, MA
• Complete CV
• Coro Amante
• https://oceanstatepops.org/
• http://lesperancemandolin.com/
• Narragansett Bay Symphony Community Orchestra

Learning Resources

• MUSC 1165-602 and 606
• Choir Facebook

Academic Focus

One of my interests is the choral music of the Viceroyalty of New Spain and I have transcribed three Salve Reginas and three Magnificats as well as smaller works. If you are interested in acquiring some of this work for performance please email me directly.

Magnificat for 3 four-part choirs, Bernardo de Peralta Escudero (d. 1617) in publication 
Magnificat primi toni, Francisco Lopez Capillas (1614-1674)
Magnificat secundi toni, Hernando Franco (1532-1585)

Salve Regina a5, Pedro Bermudez (1558-1605)
Salve Regina a4 de Contra altos, Pedro Bermudez (1558-1605)
Salve Regina a4, Pedro Bermudez (1558-1605) in publication

Former choruses directed-

• http://westfordchorus.org/
• http://townesingers.org/
• https://www.westbaychorale.org/

Presentations and Activities

CCRI YouTube channel
(pandemic Spring 2021)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqEviMhVwqU

L’Esperance Mandolin Ensemble
https://lesperancemandolin.com/video/video-concert-fair-phyllis-lesperance-mandolin-ensemble-with-the-ccri-chorus/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hO4ktIAGwIw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ornsRjnlExo

Areas of Interest

CORO AMANTE,

3/12/23 Sunday is our 3PM concert at URI (South Kingstown)  Fine Arts Center! Sound check/on-site dress rehearsal is 12:30PM-2:30PM.

Singers are also invited to rehearse the Mozart Requiem at
the CCRI Chorus and Chamber Singers rehearsals. Chorus
meets Mondays & Wednesdays from 2:30PM - 3:45PM. Chamber
Singers meets Tuesdays & Thursdays from 11:30AM - 12:45PM.
Both meet at Knight Campus Chorus Room #0562.