Cal State Fullerton School of Music alum Rayvon T.J. Moore ’17 (M.M. music-performance) has been awarded the 2024 Ernst Bacon Memorial Award for the Performance of American Music in the college/university division for his performances with the Friends University Singing Quakers in Wichita, Kansas.
The Ernst Bacon Memorial Award was established in 2016 to recognize the often unheralded music performed and created in schools, churches, colleges and universities. During his career, the award’s namesake — a contemporary of composer Aaron Copland — sought to create music that expressed the vitality and spirit of American experience.
Conductor, music educator and baritone Moore has served as director of the Singing Quakers since 2020. He also serves as the artistic director and conductor of the Wichita Chamber Chorale and the director of music ministries at Chapel Hill United Methodist Church. In 2023, he was named one of Wichita’s “40 Under 40” by the Wichita Business Journal.
Moore also holds a doctorate of musical arts from the prestigious Eastman School of Music and is frequently sought after as a guest conductor, clinician and speaker with expertise in conducting gesture, programming, interpreting spirituals, and the music of the Baroque period.
Moore’s former professors and mentors Robert Istad and Christopher Peterson, professors of music, congratulated Moore by saying, “We are so thrilled with all the wonderful things he is doing to bring people together in song.”
Moore enthusiastically credits both Istad and Peterson for his success.
“I look fondly upon my time at CSUF. I am so grateful for my training and mentorship there and aspire to be the musician, educator and leader that Professors Istad and Peterson modeled. It is a special place, and I am one proud Titan,” said Moore.