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Deanna Wehrspann is a professional piano accompanist/collaborator, composer, choral singer, and church musician. In addition to her collaborative piano work at USD, she serves/ has served the University of Sioux Falls, Augustana University, South Dakota All-State Chorus, South Dakota High School Honor Choir, South Dakota Symphony Orchestra, Opera South Dakota, Minnehaha Mandskor, and Our Savior’s Lutheran Church (Sioux Falls, SD) in a similar capacity. She has shared the stage as pianist with Grammy-winning Phoenix Chorale, Dawn Upshaw, Samuel Ramey, and Branford Marsalis, among others. She received the South Dakota High School Activities Association Distinguished Service Award in 2019, for her collaborative work with high school students throughout the state.
As a composer of choral, vocal, piano, and orchestra music, she has commissions from North Central American Choral Directors (ACDA) Elementary Honor Choir and South Dakota Music Teachers Association, among many others. She was Composer-in-Residence at Ucross Foundation in 2015 and Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts in 2013 and 2021, and has multiple compositional premieres each year. She has choral music published by Augsburg Fortress and Choristers Guild, with vocal music published by North Star Music. Her orchestra music has been performed throughout the US, including "Mourning Dove," included on the University of South Dakota Symphony Orchestra album "Observations on..." in 2022.
A professional soprano with South Dakota Chorale, which was honored to perform at the 2015 national ACDA conference, she has degrees from Augustana College (SD), Luther Seminary (MN), and Emporia State University (KS), and studied for a year in Leipzig, Germany, on full scholarship from Lutheran World Federation. She is a member of American Composers Forum, International Alliance for Women in Music, Association of Lutheran Church Musicians, American Choral Directors Association, Music Teachers National Association, and The Hymn Society in the United States and Canada. She and her husband have two grown daughters and live in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
Further information can be found at her website: deannawehrspannmusic.com