Your 2026 National AGO Convention St. Louis New Music Committee is please to announce the following commissions. These commissions we approved by the National New Music Committee and The Nation Council.
Mack Wilberg – 2026 Distinguished Composer
Commission: 4 minute hymn festival anthem for SATB and organ with brass quintet and handbells, ecumenical sacred text that will include a familiar, public domain hymn-tune
Mack Wilberg was appointed music director of The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square on March 28, 2008, having served as associate music director of the Choir since May 1999. He is a former professor of music at Brigham Young University and is active as a composer, arranger, guest conductor, and clinician throughout the United States and abroad. His compositions and arrangements, currently published exclusively by Oxford University Press, are performed and recorded by choral organizations throughout the world. Dr. Wilberg received his bachelor’s degree from Brigham Young University and his master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Southern California.
Jonathan Dove
Commission: 15 minute multi-movement work for solo organ
Jonathan Dove is an English composer of opera, choral works, plays, films, and orchestral and chamber music. Starting with his breakthrough opera Flight, commissioned by Glyndebourne in 1998, Dove has gone on to write almost thirty operatic works. Flight, a rare example of a successful modern comic opera, has been produced and broadcast many times, in Europe, the
Sara MacDonald
Commission: 3-4 minute, two-part anthem for children’s voices with organ accompaniment, with a joyful/celebratory affect, and ecumenical sacred text in English
Text Commission: from Sharon Grenham- Thompson,
Sarah MacDonald is a Canadian-born conductor, organist, pianist, and composer, living in the UK, and she holds the positions of Fellow and Director of Music at Selwyn College, Cambridge, and Director of Ely Cathedral’s Girl Choristers. She has been at Selwyn since 1999, and was the first woman to hold such a post in an Oxbridge Chapel. Sarah came to the UK from Canada in 1992 as Organ Scholar of Robinson College, Cambridge after studying piano, organ, and conducting at The Royal Conservatory of Music’s Glenn Gould School in Toronto with Leon Fleisher, Marek Jablonski, and John Tuttle. At Cambridge she read for a degree in Music, and studied the organ with David Sanger. Sarah has played numerous recitals and conducted choirs throughout the UK, North America, the Middle East, New Zealand, and much of mainland Europe. She has made over 35 recordings, variously in the guises of pianist, organist, conductor, and producer, and currently works most frequently with Regent Records. Her first solo disc, a recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations on the Steinway-D in Ely Cathedral was released in 2023.
Rollo Dilworth
Commission: 4 minute Gospel anthem for SATB choir, B3 organ, and percussion (possible bass), with ecumenical sacred text
Rollo Dilworth is Associate Professor of Choral Music Education at Temple University’s Boyer College of Music in Philadelphia, PA. Prior to his Temple University appointment in 2009, Dilworth was director of the music education program and director of the choral program at North Park University in Chicago (1996-2009). Dilworth has a bachelor of science in music education from Case Western Reserve University; a M.Ed. from University of Missouri-St. Louis; and a D.M.A. from Northwestern University. He is an oft-published composer of choral music, with emphasis in the areas of spirituals and gospel-inspired works. Dilworth is from St. Louis.
Gwyneth Walker
Commission: 15 minute, multi-movement solo organ celebrating the 7 geographical regions of the AGO.
Widely performed throughout the country, the music of American composer Gwyneth Walker is beloved by performers and audiences alike for its energy, beauty, reverence, drama, and humor. Dr. Gwyneth Walker is a graduate of Brown University and the Hartt School of Music. She holds B.A., M.M. and D.M.A. degrees in Music Composition. A former faculty member of the Oberlin College Conservatory, she resigned from academic employment in 1982 in order to pursue a career as a full-time composer. Walker’s extensive catalogue includes many solo organ works, and pieces that reflect her long-time interest in regional and geographic aspects of the United States.
Jessica Hunt
Commission: 5 minute, single-movement work for organ and brass quintet suitable as a concert opener
Jessica Hunt has been commissioned by the Philadelphia Orchestra (Climb), the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra (The Eagle Tree), the Gaudete Brass Quintet (seven works), Detroit Chamber Winds and Strings, The Michigan Lighthouse Landmark Legacy Project, Access Contemporary Music, and many others; has served as the 2018 Boontling Community Fellow at the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music and as the 2017-18 Young Composer in Residence with the Detroit Chamber Winds and Strings; and was awarded a Regents Fellowship at the University of Michigan, where she completed her doctoral studies in 2019. Hunt is an Assistant Professor of Music Theory at The Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University.
Shruthi Rajasekar
Commission: 4-6 minute work for solo organ
Named by The Guardian as a composer “who will enrich your life”, Shruthi Rajasekar is an Indian-American musician exploring identity, community, and joy. Shruthi’s music draws from her training in the Carnatic (South Indian classical) and Western classical idioms. Composition honors include the KHORIKOS ORTUS International Award and the Global Women in Music Award from the United Nations & Donne in Musica. As a soprano and Carnatic vocalist, Shruthi has been recognized by the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) and the internationally-televised Carnatic Music Idol USA. A graduate of Princeton University, Shruthi was awarded a Marshall Scholarship in the UK for graduate studies in composition and ethnomusicology.
Zanaida Stewart Robles
Commission: 10 minute, multi-movement work for organ and solo voice, with a public domain secular or ecumenical sacred text likely of a mystical nature (e.g. Rumi, Psalms)
Zanaida Stewart Robles is an award-winning American composer, vocalist, and teacher. Dr. Robles primarily writes choral music, songs, and keyboard works. Her compositional style can be described as “progressive classical”: energized, soulful, harmonically colorful, rhythmically driven, heavily modal with African elements and touches of progressive rock. As a concert soprano soloist, studio vocalist for film and television, and professional ensemble singer, Dr. Robles has sung throughout the United States, and in parts of Europe, New Zealand, and Australia. Her film, television, and video game credits include Glee, Godzilla, Minions, The Lego Movie, Despicable Me 3, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and Frozen 2. Dr. Robles holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the USC Thornton School of Music, a Master of Music degree from CSU Northridge, and a Bachelor of Music degree from CSU Long Beach.
If you are interested in underwriting a commission, please contact Gifts and Grants Chair John Walsh at 314.503.3690 (johnwalsh@aol.com) or Burnell Hackman at 314.650.9415 (agostl2026@agostlouis.org)