We’re looking forward to featuring the following musicians in our November 20 performance of Rejoice!: Dr. Zachary Malavolti, Guest Conductor, Dr. Jeffery Wall, Guest Conductor, Joseph Arndt, Organ, and Sydney ZumMallen, Cello. Read more about them below.
DR. ZACHARY MALAVOLTI is a conductor, composer, and musical clinician originally from Tulsa. He has directed and prepared musicians throughout Oklahoma for performances with the Tulsa Chorale, Tulsa Symphony, OKC Philharmonic, OK Mozart Festival, The University of Oklahoma, and The University of Tulsa. He is presently the Artistic Director of the Bartlesville Chorale. Before returning to Oklahoma, he was the Conductor-In-Residence of the MUSET Homeschool Orchestra in Kingston, New York. He was also the Assistant Conductor of The Collegiate Chorale in New York City where he assisted in preparing the symphonic chorus for performances around the world with esteemed conductors such as Riccardo Muti, Zubin Mehta, Charles Dutoit, and Alan Gilbert.
Dr. Malavolti is also Associate Choirmaster at Saint John’s Episcopal Church in Tulsa where he directs the parish choir, youth choristers, and their professional chamber choir. The church proudly offers a professional Choral Evensong every Sunday. Next year, this ensemble will offer the complete cycle of the evening musical services of Herbert Howells. This December, Dr. Malavolti will direct two complete performances of Handel’s Messiah with specialized baroque players and nationally renowned guest soloists.
Dr. Malavolti is a graduate of The University of Tulsa (BM) where he was a prize-winning composition student under Joseph Rivers and Roger Price. At the Bard Conservatory of Music (MM), he studied both choral and orchestral conducting with James Bagwell and Harold Farberman. He completed his doctorate at The University of Oklahoma (DMA) under the supervision of Richard Zielinski and David Howard. His research is on colonial American choral music and its later use by the twentieth-century American composer Henry Cowell.
DR. JEFFERY WALL serves as Professor of Music and Director of Choral Activities at Northeastern State University in Tahlequah, Oklahoma where he also served as Chair of the Department of Music for six years. He conducts the University Singers and the University/Community Chorus and supervises the Harmony Hawks, a contemporary a cappella ensemble. He teaches undergraduate conducting among other courses. He was selected as a part of the President’s Ambassadors Network by his colleagues and as a Top-10 RiverHawk by the Student Government Association in 2018.
He came to NSU from Bethany College in Lindsborg, Kansas where he was the Elmer F. Pierson Distinguished Professor of Music. He served as Co-Chair of the Department of Music and Director of Choral/Vocal Activities at Bethany. He conducted several student choirs, and the Bethany Oratorio Society and Orchestra for the annual Messiah Festival of the Arts. Dr. Wall conducted Handel’s Messiah and J.S. Bach’s Passion According to St. Matthew annually. Additionally, he taught choral pedagogy and conducting, applied voice, and other vocal music classes.
Wall has presented interest sessions for the Kansas Choral Directors Association, Oklahoma Music Educators Association, Oklahoma Choral Directors Association, Arkansas Music Educators Association, the College Music Society, and the Southwestern Division of the American Choral Directors Association. He has served as guest conductor and clinician for choirs of all types in Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, New Mexico, Arkansas, Illinois, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama, and Georgia. He has served the Southwestern Division of ACDA in several capacities: 2020 Performing Group Liaison, 2022 Interest Session Chair, and 2024 Conference Chair. Recently, Dr. Wall led an international tour for the American Celebration of Music in Ireland where his choir was presented with an Outstanding Performance Award. His next major international engagement will be conducting in the Baltic Nations in 2023. Upon invitation, he has twice conducted the NSU choirs as prelude performance for the North Texas Metroplex Children’s Choir at the Meyerson Symphony Center in Dallas.
Dr. Wall is in demand as a conductor, teacher, clinician, and adjudicator. He is conductor of the professional-level chamber choir called Vox Solaris, headquartered in Broken Arrow/Tulsa, Oklahoma. He has experience in collegiate, high school, professional, community, and church settings. He has served as a faculty member at Georgia State University in Atlanta and New Mexico Junior College in Hobbs, New Mexico. He has also taught public school, grades 7-12 in Lubbock, Texas. He frequently sings with the semi-professional chorus, the Ken Davis Chorale, based out of the Dallas area. Dr. Wall is an active member of the American Choral Directors Association, the College Music Society, and several other professional choral and music education organizations.
He holds a Bachelor of Music degree in Vocal Music Education from Texas Tech University. Dr. Wall received his Master of Music degree in Choral Conducting from the University of Tennessee. His Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Choral Conducting was earned at the University of South Carolina.
JOSEPH ARNDT is Music Director at Saint John’s Episcopal Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He led the campaign for the parish’s 2018 chancel organ, Opus 173 by Schoenstein & Co. He founded the Oklahoma Bach Choir, an ensemble dedicated to performing the sacred vocal works of J. S. Bach with period instruments. His past two seasons with the Bach Choir have included BWV 1, 4, 10, 19, 29, 35, 51, 62, 140, and 230. He and guest conductor Timothy Brown (retired from Clare College, Cambridge) have also presented complete performances of Handel’s Messiah. Many of these Bach and Handel performances have been broadcast on Public Radio Tulsa.
A graduate of The Juilliard School (MM) and Westminster Choir College (BM), he studied organ with Paul Jacobs, Ken Cowan, and Diane Meredith Belcher. He is Chair of Planned Giving for the Association of Anglican Musicians and the most recent past Dean of the Tulsa Chapter of the American Guild of Organists. He has served as adjunct instructor of harpsichord and early music at Oklahoma City University and the University of Central Oklahoma.
In 2022 Mr. Arndt gives solo recitals at Church of the Advent in Boston and Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. To mark the bicentennial of César Franck, he and Adam Pajan are giving joint marathon recitals of the composer’s complete organ works with a tour including performances in Houston, Fort Worth, New York City, Seattle, Denver, and Tulsa. They also recently gave a workshop on Franck’s life and work at the American Guild of Organists National Convention in Seattle.
Born deep in the heart of Texas, baroque cellist and viola da gamba player SYDNEY ZUMMALLEN is an active teacher and freelancer who has recently relocated back to the DFW area. A versatile musician, Sydney embarked on her career as a baroque specialist under the mentorship of Paul Leenhouts, touring extensively and teaching masterclasses with the ensemble Fantasmi throughout South America and Europe. She has also enjoyed tours across Italy with Fabio Bonizzoni, and across Europe and New Zealand with Robert Mealy and Juilliard415. The winner of The Juilliard School’s inaugural baroque cello concerto competition, Sydney made her solo debut with Juilliard415 at Alice Tully Hall in New York under the direction of Pablo Heras-Casado.
During her studies at the University of North Texas, The Royal Conservatory of The Hague, and The Juilliard School, she enjoyed working with musicians from all over the world including Jaap ter Linden, Kristin von der Goltz, Albert Brüggen, and Richte van der Meer. She has also worked extensively with Rachel Podger, Maasaki Suzuki, Richard Egarr, and Nicholas McGegan, with whom she led the continuo in The Juilliard School’s acclaimed production of Handel’s Rinaldo.
Sydney received her master’s degree from The Juilliard School, where she was a recipient of the Historical Performance Scholarship and a student of Phoebe Carrai and Sarah Cunningham. She is currently an adjunct faculty at The University of North Texas where she teaches baroque cello and viola da gamba.