John Rommereim is Professor of Music at Grinnell College. His activities range widely: composer, conductor, baritone soloist, harpsichordist, translator.

John Christian Rommereim is Professor of Music at Grinnell College, where he has taught since 1988. During his first decade at Grinnell, his scholarly work was centered in the areas of Russian choral music and early music performance. In the last few years, he has established a reputation as a composer as well. The New York Times recently praised the richly expressive character of his vocal writing. In 2008-09, he is Composer-in-Residence with the Rose Ensemble, an award-winning professional group centered in the Twin Cities. Mr. Rommereim has composed choral/orchestral works, works for choir with various instruments, and works for voice and piano, guitar, flute, saxophone quartet, and string quartet. He is the recipient of commissions from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Iowa Choral Directors Association, and the Iowa Arts Council.

His work for choir and guitar, "Calm on the Listening Ear Of Night" won the 2006 Welcome Christmas carol contest, sponsored by VocalEssence, Philip Brunelle, director. In 2003, he composed Convivencia, a six-movement work for choir, string quartet, and harp, based on ancient love poetry from Jewish, Islamic, and Christian traditions. The fifth movement of Convivencia, a setting of poetry by the 13th-century Sufi poet/philosopher, Ibn Arabi, received second place in the 2005 Nuvovox choral award. In October of 2006, Voces Novae, of Bloomington, Indiana, premiered the choral cycle in its entirety, featuring it on a special concert co-sponsored by Jewish, Muslim, and Christian organisations. Three additional performances of the work occured in New York and Iowa in 2008, and The Interfaith Project of Omaha, Nebraska is currently planning performances in January off 2009.

The Minneapolis-based ensemble, Magnum Chorum premiered Rommereim's "Set Me As A Seal," commissioned by the Iowa Choral Directors Association and the Iowa Composers Forum, in July of 2006. In February of 2006, baritone Thomas Meglioranza premiered his song cycle, Into the Still Hollow at Symphony Space, in New York City. Guitar virtuoso Petar Jankovic performed his "Upon the Blue Guitar" on a European concert tour in 2006. His choral/orchestral work Utopia (a setting of a poem by Wislawa Szymborska) was premiered by the Grinnell Singers and the Prague Radio Orchestra in March of 2000.

Rommereim's choral works are published by Oxford University Press and earthsongs. Rommereim holds a bachelor?s degree from St. Olaf College, a master's degree in composition from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and a doctor of musical arts degree in choral conducting from the University of Kansas.

"Earth's Remotest Bound" for mixed choir
"Man that is Born of a Woman" for choir, vielle, hurdy-gurdy, soloists
"Poem of light" for treble voices and harp
"Garden Among the Flames" for mixed choir and harp