Presented by the UAB College of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Music. The UAB Concert Choir will feature one of Brunner’s best known works, “O Music,” commissioned by UAB Associate Professor Jeff Reynolds, DMA, at a free concert 7 p.m. Friday, Oct. 20.

Brunner’s expertise embraces singers of all ages, from young children and emerging choirs to university, community and professional choruses. For 30 years as professor of Music and director of Choral Activities, Brunner led the choral program at the University of Central Florida, where he conducted the University Chorus and Chamber Singers, taught courses in undergraduate and graduate conducting, and coached composition students. He twice received a College of Arts and Sciences Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award and in 1995 the University Excellence in Teaching Award, UCF’s highest teaching honor. He also  received four Teaching Incentive Awards, three Research Incentive Awards, and three major research awards.

In 2011 he received Florida ACDA’s prestigious Wayne Hugoboom Distinguished Service Award for “dedicated service, leadership and consistent examples of excellence in choral music in Florida” and in 2019 the inaugural Impact Award for Distinguished Contribution to the Choral Profession. He is the 2020 recipient of the College Music Educator of the Year award from the Florida Music Educators Association. Brunner has been on the music faculties of the Chicago Musical College of Roosevelt University and South Suburban College, and is on the graduate faculty of the VanderCook College of Music. His choirs have performed in England, France, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Italy and Greece, at state and divisional conventions of the American Choral Directors Association and the Music Educators National Conference, at the Seminar für Klassiche Musik at the Eisenstädte Sommerakademie in Eisenstadt and Vienna, in St. Mark’s Basilica, Venice, St. Martin-in-the-Fields and Wesley’s Chapel, London, and at the Vatican for Pope John Paul II.