Maestra D'Walla Simmons-Burke has held teaching positions in Georgia, South Carolina and presently at Winston-Salem State University (North Carolina) where she is the Director of Choral and Vocal Studies for the Department of Music.

Simmons-Burke is the founder of four of the five choral ensembles currently existing within the Music Department at Winston-Salem State University (Winston-Salem State University Singin’ Divas; Schola Cantorum; Complesso Voce' and the renowned Burke Singers). The Winston-Salem State University Choir (aka Singing Rams) is one of the first student organizations founded at the university. The WSSU Choir has performed with the Gateways Symphony Orchestra; Winston-Salem Symphony Orchestra, D'Vorak Symphony Orchestra, Colour of Music Festival Symphony Orchestra and the New England Symphony Orchestra and is well sought after for its performances of master choral works (i.e…Haydn's Creation; Handel's Messiah; Fauré’s Requiem; Rossini’s Stabat Mater; Orff's Carmina Burana; Mozart's Requiem; and Berlioz’s Te Deum), spirituals and world music. Maestra Simmons-Burke has conducted Gabriel Fauré's Requiem with the New England Symphony and Symphony Chorale at Carnegie Hall. She returned to Carnegie Hall to conduct the Winston-Salem State University Choir in a mini concert. Simmons-Burke has also performed internationally with her choral ensembles and as a guest conductor/lecturer in Prague, Czech Republic; Nassau, Bahamas; Accra, Cape Coast & Kumasi, Ghana - West Africa; and Pilanesberg, Cape Town and Johannesburg – South Africa. Maestra Simmons-Burke has conducted The 105 Voices of History Concert Choir as a National Conductor at The John F. Kennedy Performing Arts Center and in Nassau, Bahamas. She is a recipient of the 105 Voices of History Kennedy Center Performing Arts Award. During her time with the 105 Voices of History, Simmons-Burke was the National Choral Coordinator and one of three conductors who lead the 105 Voices of History Concert Choir in their inaugural performance at the Grand Ole Opry.

Maestra Simmons-Burke's choirs have recorded and produced nine compact disks (In Silent Night; Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing; I Wanna Be Ready; Hold Fast To Dreams; Pieces of A Dream; Joy To the World; 20th Anniversary Celebration In Honor of D'Walla Simmons-Burke; My God is a Rock; The Gift of Peace). She has also produced three DVDs – Collaborative DVD with Singin' Black and White (Shout Hallelujah!: A New South Gospel Christmas); From Racism to Grace+ism and Stony The Road We Trod: Lifting Every Voice…Celebrating the Music of Roland M. Carter.

Under Simmons-Burke's baton, her choral ensembles have performed for and/or with such regional and national and international dignitaries as President George W. Bush; Kweisi Mfume; Susan Taylor; former North Carolina Governor James Hunt; Maya Angelou; Dick Gregory; Patti Austin; Harry Belafonté; Madame President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia and Pope John Paul II, to name a few. Her exceptional and diverse vocal and choral pedagogies are continuously demonstrated through the outstanding students she has produced. As a result, Simmons-Burke has been the recipient of several teaching awards such as the Winston-Salem State University Patterson Outstanding Teacher of the Year Award, Winston-Salem State University Cedric Rodney Service Award and The John F. Kennedy Center for The Performing Arts 105 Voices of History National Conductor's Award. Formally, the Recording Academy, in partnership with the GRAMMY Foundation nominated Simmons-Burke for the Grammy's Music Educator of the Year Award. Simmons-Burke has also been the recipient of many community service and performance awards for her achievements in music.

Maestra Simmons-Burke is listed in Outstanding Young Women of America and has held memberships in many other organizations such as the Music Educators National Conference; the American Choral Directors Association; the National Association of African American Studies; the National Association for the Study and Performance of African-American Music; National Association of Negro Musicians; The Intercollegiate Musicians Association; the National Associations for African American, Asian, Hispanic, and Latino Studies; Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., The Moles, and The Links, Inc.

Simmons-Burke has performed leading roles as a soprano in operas, such as Lost in the Stars; LaTraviata; Amahl and the Night Visitors; The Telephone; and The Old Maid and the Thief. She has also made numerous guest appearances as a conductor and adjudicator for high school and middle school All-State/All-County festivals, collegiate choral festivals and workshops. She is often sought after as a sacred music, social justice and multicultural music clinician/lecturer and soprano.

Dr. Ann Howard Jones is professor emerita of Music at Boston University. During her twenty-two years as director of choral activities, she founded and conducted the Symphonic and Chamber Choruses, supervised conducting students in the Concert Chorus and Women’s Chorale, taught graduate choral conducting, and administered the MM and DMA programs in choral conducting. Her musicianship, integrity, and influence are present in every corner of the country through the numerous academic appointments of her former students, the transformative experiences of musicians under her baton and a generation of enthusiastic concertgoers.

Recognized as a distinguished clinician, adjudicator, teacher and conductor, Dr. Jones has led many all-state and regional choruses, workshops, and master classes in the U.S., Europe, South America, Canada and Asia. She has been invited to teach and conduct at the University of Iowa, the University of North Texas, Michigan State University, University of Missouri University of Miami, San Diego State University, the University of Missouri-Kansas City, Southern Methodist University, Westminster Choir College of Rider University, the University of Georgia, the University of Kentucky, the University of New Mexico, Syracuse University, Florida International University, and the State University of New York at Potsdam.

From 1984 to 1998, Dr. Jones was the assistant conductor to the late Robert Shaw and the Atlanta Symphony choruses, where she was the assistant conductor for choruses, sang in the alto section, assisted with the Robert Shaw Chamber Singers, and helped to organize the Robert Shaw Institute. She sang and recorded with the Festival Singers both in France and in the U.S. The Festival Singers were also represented in annual performances of major works for chorus and orchestra at Carnegie Hall in a series of performance workshops. After Shaw’s death in 1999, Jones was invited to conduct the Robert Shaw Tribute Singers for the American Choral Directors Association conferences in San Antonio and Orlando.

Choruses at Boston University have been invited to appear at convention of the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA) in Boston, New York City and Providence. Jones has traveled with a group of BU graduate students to Venice and Padua, Italy, to perform and to study. A similar trip was made to Oslo and Bergen, Norway. In the spring of 2009, the graduate conducting students joined Jones at the national convention of ACDA in Oklahoma City, where she was invited to prepare and conduct the world premiere of Dominick Argento’s CENOTAPH.

Among the honors that Jones has received are the coveted Metcalf Award for Excellence in Teaching from Boston University, a Fulbright professorship to Brazil, and a lectureship for the Lily Foundation. At the ACDA national conference in 2011, she was named the recipient of the Robert Shaw Choral Award for Distinguished Service to the Profession, the highest award given by the association. In 2012 she received the Distinguished Service award from Chorus America, and in 2015 she received the Lifetime Achievement Award from Choral Arts New England.

Composer, conductor, and teacher Alice Parker was born in Boston in 1925. She began composing early and wrote her first orchestral score while still in high school. Parker graduated from Smith College with a major in music performance and composition and then received her master’s degree from the Juilliard School, where she studied choral conducting with Robert Shaw.

Her life’s work has been in choral and vocal music, combining composing, conducting, and teaching in a creative balance. Her arrangements with Robert Shaw of folk songs, hymns, and spirituals form an enduring repertoire for choruses all around the world. She continues composing in many forms, from operas to cantatas, sacred anthems to secular dances, song cycles to string quartets. She has been commissioned by such groups as the Vancouver Chamber Chorus, the Atlanta Symphony Chorus, and Chanticleer. Her many conducting and teaching engagements keep her traveling around the United States and Canada.

In 1985, she founded Melodious Accord, Inc., a nonprofit group that presents choral concerts and sponsors workshops, symposia, and her many professional appearances. The Fellows programs have provided unique training for composers, conductors, and song leaders. She has made eleven acclaimed recordings with the Musicians of Melodious Accord, a sixteen-voice professional chorus. The group has received generous support from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Copland Foundation, and the New York State Council for the Arts.

Alice Parker serves on the board of Chorus America and was honored by them and the American Guild of Organists and the Hymn Society in her seventy-fifth year. Her techniques have encouraged a generation of music teachers and choral conductors to think about music and the act of conducting in new ways. No less an authority than Robert Shaw himself has said of Parker that “she possesses a rare and creative musical intelligence.”

Now a resident of western Massachusetts, Parker has published books on melodic styles, choral improvisation, and Good Singing in Church. Five videos show her work with hymns and folk songs. She is the recipient of four honorary doctorates and the Smith College Medal. For more about Alice Parker, see www.aliceparker.com.

Dr. Rosephanye Dunn Powell has been hailed as one of America’s premier women composers of choral music. She has an impressive catalogue of works published by some of the nation’s leading publishers, including the Hal Leonard Corporation, the Fred Bock Music Company/Gentry Publications, Oxford University Press, Alliance Music Publications, and Shawnee. Dr. Powell is commissioned yearly to compose for university choruses, professional, community and church choirs, as well as secondary school choruses. Dr. Powell’s works have been conducted and premiered by nationally-renowned choral conductors, including, but not limited to, Anton Armstrong, Philip Brunelle, Bob Chilcott, Rodney Eichenberger, Tom Hall, Albert McNeil, Tim Seelig, and André Thomas. Her work has been auctioned by Chorus America and her compositions are in great demand at choral festivals around the country, frequently appearing on the regional and national conventions of the American Choral Directors Association, as well as Honor Choir festivals. Dr. Powell’s compositions include sacred and secular works for mixed chorus, women’s chorus, men’s chorus, and children’s voices. Dr. Powell serves as Professor of Voice at Auburn University. She holds degrees from The Florida State University (D.M. in vocal performance, University Fellow), Westminster Choir College (M.M. in vocal performance and pedagogy, with distinction), and Alabama State University (B.M.E., summa cum laude). Dr. Powell served on the faculties of Philander Smith College (AR) and Georgia Southern University prior to her arrival at Auburn University in 2001.

Recent commission and premiere highlights include: Love Will Make A Way (SATB) premiered by the Metropolitan Youth Chorale of New York at Lincoln Center, NY; Get Busy (SATB) premiered and conducted by the composer at Carnegie Hall, NY; A Christmas Medley (SATB), commissioned and performed by multi-Grammy award-winning Chanticleer; When I Sing (SSA), commissioned by the American Composers Forum CHORALQUEST series; I Want to Die While You Love Me (SSAA), composed for the ACDA Women’s Choirs Commission Consortium; Gospel Trinity (SATB), commissioned by the Brehm Center for Worship, Theology and the Arts/Fuller Theological Seminary (CA) and premiered at the Lincoln Center, NY; With What Shall I Come (SATB), composed for the St. Olaf Choir celebration of the 25th anniversary of Dr. Anton Armstrong, conductor, and premiered at Carnegie Hall; and The Cry of Jeremiah, a four-movement sacred work for narrator, chorus, organ and orchestra, commissioned by the American Guild of Organists, premiered at the Lincoln Center, NY; Arise Beloved, commissioned by OurSong (Atlanta, GA) one of four works premiered as part of the group’s choral cycle “And Nature Smiled,” performed at the internationally-acclaimed Spivey Hall; Christmas Give, a suite of five songs for SATB and orchestra, composed for the Baltimore Choral Arts Society Christmas CD “Christmas at America’s First Cathedral” released by Gothic Records; and Ev’ry Time I Feel the Spirit, arranged for The Sofia Chamber Choir “Vassil Arnaudov”- Bulgaria, Southeastern Europe.

An accomplished singer and voice professor, Dr. Powell’s research focuses on the art of the African-American spiritual and voice care concerns for voice professionals (specifically, music educators, choral directors, and choral singers). She travels the country and internationally presenting lectures, song demonstrations, and serving as a workshop clinician, conductor, and adjudicator for solo vocal competitions/auditions, honor choirs, choral workshops and festivals. Recent commitments include Melbourne International Singers Festival (AUS); the New York State School Music Association (Rochester); the Georgia Music Educators Association Conference (Savannah); Middle Tennessee Vocal Association Treble Honor Choir (Nashville); the World Choir Games (Cincinnati, OH); the Italian Feder Gospel Choirs Workshop (Milan, Italy); Alabama Music Educators Association High School Honor Choir (Montgomery); Samford University (Lilly Fellows Program in Humanities and the Arts) (Birmingham, AL); South Carolina Music Educators Association State Conference (Charleston); AGO National Conference (Nashville, TN); Summer Sing Choral Workshop and Tuning at Tahoe Music Directors Workshop (Lake Tahoe, NV); and Capital Area Music Association (Harrisburg, PA).

As a researcher, Dr. Powell’s recent articles include Keeping the “Choir” in Showchoir published in the Amercan Choral Directors Journal; William Grant Still: His Life and His Songs and The African-American Spritual: Preparation and Performance Considerations both published in the prestigious NATS Journal of Singing. She served as the editor and wrote the introduction for William Grant Still: An Art Song Collection which is published by William Grant Still Music.

Dr. Powell has received numerous awards including the “Living Legend Award” presented by California State University African Diaspora Sacred Music Festival in Los Angeles. She was listed in the first edition of the international publication Who Is Who in Choral Music. And, she has been included in Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers and Outstanding Young Women in America in recent years. Dr. Powell is a member of the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP), the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA), the College Music Society (CMS), the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) and the Music Educators National Conference (MENC).

The choral conductor and teacher, Jean Ashworth Bartle won the 1977 Leslie Bell Scholarship (Prize), and the 1982 Sir Ernest MacMillan Scholarship, which enabled her to study with Sir David Willcocks and Margaret Hillis at Westminster Choir College, Princeton, NJ.

Jean Ashworth Bartle founded the Toronto Children's Chorus in 1978 in order to provide a children's choir for the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Since then, under her direction, the Toronto Children's Chorus has received international acclaim and won many prestigious choral prizes. She has brought the music of Canadian composers to many audiences and expanded the choral repertoire by commissioning and promoting Canadian compositions.

Jean Ashworth Bartle was a teacher for the Toronto Board of Education 1966-1998, including a period as director of the music program at Howard Public School in Toronto from 1970 to 1989, and of the junior choirs at Kingsway Lambton United Church. She was also a member of the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir. She is highly active as a choral clinician, adjudicator and guest conductor throughout North America, Europe, Israel, South Africa, the Far East, and the Pacific Rim. She holds an annual choral conductors' symposium that attracts choir directors from around the world.

In 1986 Jean Ashworth Bartle was awarded the Roy Thomson Hall Award for her outstanding contribution to musical life in Toronto. In 1998 she was invested in the Order of Ontario, and also received the Order of Canada. In 2002 she received the Queen's Jubilee Medal in London, England, and in November 2003 she was awarded an honorary life membership in the Ontario Music Educators' Association. In 2004, an award named in her honour, the Jean Ashworth Bartle Music Education Award, was established at the Faculty of Music at the University of Toronto.

Jean Ashworth Bartle is the editor of three treble-voice music series: The Toronto Children's Choral Series (Gordon V. Thompson/Warner/Chappell); The Jean Ashworth Bartle Choral Series for Treble Voices (Hinshaw Music); and the Jean Ashworth Bartle Choral Series (earthsongs). She is also the author of two books: Lifeline for Children's Choir Directors .

March 3 - Joan Gregoryk, the founder and artistic director of the Children’s Chorus of Washington, is internationally recognized as a leader in the field of children’s vocal music. Gregoryk prepared the singers for their debut at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in November 1996 with The Washington Chorus in a performance of Ralph Vaughan Williams’ A Sea Symphony. She was invited by music director Leonard Slatkin to prepare the Chorus for four performances of Gabriel Pierné’s The Children’s Crusade with the National Symphony Orchestra and The Washington Chorus at the Kennedy Center and at Carnegie Hall in November of 1997.

Gregoryk taught for many years at Chevy Chase Elementary School where her work with the school’s chorus won her acclaim within professional music organizations, as well as invitations to perform within the United States and Europe. She is in demand as a workshop leader and guest conductor throughout the United States and Canada. At universities, such as Westminster Choir College in Princeton, NJ, she has taught music educator’s courses on children’s vocal development and the children’s chorus for many years. She has also been a seminar leader for Orff-Schulwerk, Kodály, and American Choral Directors and Music Educators chapters and is frequently invited to be a guest conductor for children’s choral festivals.

Gregoryk has been awarded numerous honors including Outstanding Arts Educator in the United States by the Rockefeller Brothers Funds Awards in Arts Education and the Maryland Outstanding Elementary Music Educator. She holds both a bachelor’s and a master’s of arts in music education, and is an Artist-Teacher associate at the Choral Music Experience Institute.

Dr. Hilary Apfelstadt is Professor Emerita of Choral Studies at the University of Toronto where she held the Elmer Iseler Chair in Conducting. From 2013 – 2018, she was Artistic Director of Exultate Chamber Singers, a semi-professional ensemble in Toronto.

A native Canadian, she has led her university choirs in performances at conferences of the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA), and at Podium, the national professional conference of Choral Canada. She has guest conducted numerous honors choruses and festivals through the U.S. and Canada, including more than 35 all-state high school choirs. She directed the 2014 National Youth Choir of Canada and has conducted choral festivals internationally. Her teaching experiences range from public school to community ensembles to church choirs.

During her significant career, Hilary Apfelstadt has mentored many young conductors. She has advised almost 90 graduate conducting majors, many of whom hold significant teaching and church positions. A former national president of ACDA, she serves on the Editorial Board for the ACDA Choral Journal. She has contributed chapters to several books published by GIA Publications: Wisdom, Wit and Will (Joan Conlon, ed.), Conducting Women’s Choirs: Strategies for Success (Debra Spurgeon, ed.) and Teaching Music Through Performance in Choir, volumes 4 and 5. Her book on the life and work of Canadian composer Ruth Watson Henderson, I Didn’t Want It To be Boring (Toronto: Prism Publishers) won Choral Canada’s award for Outstanding Choral Publication in 2018.

A prolific author, Dr. Apfelstadt wrote two chapters in Wisdom, Wit and Will: Women Choral Conductors on Their Art (GIA, 2009), and also authored a chapter on Canadian choral music in Conducting Women’s Choirs: Strategies for Success (GIA, 2012). She serves on the editorial boards of ACDA’s Choral Journal and the International Journal of Research in Choral Singing, and NCCO’s Choral Scholar; she is also Choral Editor of the Canadian Music Educator. A past national president of ACDA (2007 – 2009), she was a member of the Executive Committee through June 2013.

Dr. Lynne Gackle is the Director of Choral Activities at Baylor University and holds the Mary Jane Gibbs Professor of Music Chair. She conducts Baylor Bella Voce, Baylor Concert Choir, teaches choral conducting, choral literature and serves as the Director of the Ensemble Division. Prior to her Baylor appointment, Lynne taught at the University of South Florida, University of Mississippi and the University of Miami (FL). She received her education from LSU (BME) and the University of Miami (MM/PhD) in Coral Gables, FL.

She is an active clinician and conductor and has held various positions within the American Choral Directors Association, including President, Southern Division and ACDA-Florida and currently serves as the National President. She also served as the TCDA-VP of Collegiate/Community Choirs.

Gackle is the editor of Choral Artistry for the Singer (Walton Music/GIA) and the Lynne Gackle Choral Series (Colla Voce). Recognized for her research on the female adolescent voice, Lynne is the author of Finding Ophelia’s Voice, Opening Ophelia’s Heart (Heritage) and is a contributing author for other books published by GIA, Oxford, and Hal Leonard/McGraw Hill. She holds memberships in ACDA, TMEA, TCDA, and NATS.

Nola A. Nahulu, Artistic Director, Celebrating her 34th Season. Hawai'i Youth Opera Chorus Director & Founder Ka Waiola O Na Pukanileo Ms. Nahulu is a native of Makaha, O'ahu and received her education from: Wai'anae Elementary School, Kamehameha Schools, Whitman College (B.A. Psychology), and University of Hawai'i Manoa (M.A. in Music Education, Choral).

Ms. Nahulu has been involved in the Choral Music scene of Hawai'i since 1979. The organizations she has been associated with have included the Unitarian Church, Bishop Memorial Church, Moloka'i Children's Chorus and the Kamehameha Alumni Glee Club. She is presently choral director for: Hawaii Youth Opera Chours since 1986, The Kawaiaha'o Church Choir since 1990, Hawai'i Opera Theater Chorus since 1990, the University of Hawaii Manoa Hawaiian Choral Ensemble since 1982, and the Pearl Harbor Hawaiian Civic Club since 1977. She served as interim choir director for the Honolulu Symphony Chorus in 2007 & 2008. She is the founder and director of the Kawaiolaonapukanileo ensemble since 1997 (an ensemble dedicated to the preservation of the Hawaiian choral music genre).

Her teaching endeavors have included: Our Redeemer Lutheran School, the Kamehameha Schools, the University Laboratory School where she was Music Department Chair & choir director from 1982 – 1995, she is a lecturer and conductor at UH Manoa Music Department directing the Hawaiian Chorus since 1982, she is an original collaborator and instructor in Ohana Komputer’s “Steps to Success Program” 2015 to present. This program works with at risk and low income island youth majority pacific island and Asian demographics. She is the Hawaiian music and cultural advisor in the STEPs program.

Ms. Nahulu became Artistic & Music Director for the Hawai'i Youth Opera Chorus in 1986. Since then the chorus has grown from twenty singers to 150 children in the core program grades K-12. The focus of the organization is that of Music Education. There are nine graded ensembles, optional hula, piano and vocal coaching as well as choral conducting internships available for high school and college students and other teachers. She conducts the High School, Select & Boy Choir ensembles. The organization serves an average of 1500 students each year through its various outreach projects including hosting 3 choral festivals and music education outreach in an average of 8-10 schools a year. She serves as a teaching mentor and choral clinician to music education students and multiple visiting guest ensembles each season. She is considered an authority on Hawaiian Choral Music.

Ms. Nahulu is a member of HMEA (Hawai'i Music Educator's Association), Treasurer for SGM (Society for General Music) and is past president for ADCA (American Choral Director's Association) Hawai'i Chapter. She currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Hawaiian Music & Dance Foundation, Hawaii Arts Center for Youth, and the Hawaii Alliance for the Arts.

“In honor of her many contributions, Nola received the YWCA Leadership Award in 2010, she was featured on the PBS “Long Story Short” program in 2011, she was named a Honpa Hongwanji Living Treasure in 2013, and she was awarded a Ho`okele Award by the Hawaii Community Foundation for excellence in nonprofit leadership in 2014.” She has received lifetime service and choral excellence awards from the Windward Choral Society and Honolulu Chorale in 2018. She is recognized by the Aha Hipu`u of the Hawaiian Benevolent Societies for her work in cultural preservation and excellence in 2019.

Judy Bowers, Professor Emerita in the College of Music at Florida State University, currently lives in Monroe, LA and holds the Biedenharn Chair in Music as choral music education professor at the University of Louisiana, Monroe. At ULM, she has led a curriculum revision for undergraduate music education degree programs and established a three summer Master of Music Education program for practicing teachers. Across her career in music teacher preparation, Bowers has taught undergraduate and graduate classes for music education, and she conducted the Women’s Glee Club at FSU, and currently conducts the newly formed Bayou La Belle at ULM.

A belief that the teaching/learning process is a collaborative act has led Bowers to create multiple partnerships to enrich learning opportunities for university students which then provide positive changes for the school and community partners: Adopt-A-Choir, a high school/university connection for one concert during one semester; Raa Singers, part of a before-school program pairing university students with urban middle school students for multiple choral and instrumental classes, and, MTC Glee, a choir with FSU students partnered with women in a correctional facility. Bowers contributes to music teacher professional growth through presentations, publications, interest sessions, and school in-service; she models the choral pedagogy she teaches when conducting all state and honor choirs in the US, Canada, and Africa. In June 2014, Bowers was named a Lowell Mason National Music Education Fellow and was inducted into this society by the National Association for Music Education in Washington D.C.

March 5-Dr. Diana V. Sáez is the newly appointed Director of Choral Activities at Towson University in Baltimore where she directs the TU Chorale, Women’s Choir and Choral Society. Before coming to Towson, Sáez was serving as Visiting Choir Director at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois where she conducted the College Choir and Madrigal Choir. Previously she served as Visiting Choir Conductor at McDaniel College in Westminster, MD. Sáez also directed the Catholic University Women’s Choir for six years and served as artistic director of the World Bank-IMF Chorus in Washington DC for sixteen years.

Frequently invited as guest conductor, adjudicator and lecturer in the United States and abroad, she has presented interest sessions at national and regional ACDA conventions as well as in Puerto Rico and Argentina. She was guest conductor at the Festival Distrital de Coros en Bogotá, Colombia and has directed regional honor choruses in Virginia, Maryland, New York and Pennsylvania.

As a leading specialist in the field of Latin American music, Sáez served as artistic director of Cantigas, a chamber choir that she founded with the mission to increase awareness and appreciation of Latin America and Spanish choral music. For 25 years Cantigas was a principal performer of Latin American music, with appearances at the ACDA Eastern Division Convention, Kennedy Center, Strathmore Center, museums and embassies, as well as international tours in Colombia, Argentina, Venezuela, Puerto Rico and Cuba. In 2014, the choir was awarded the Choral Excellence Award for Most Creative Programming by the Choralis Foundation in Washington, DC.

Dr. Sáez began her musical education at the Escuela Libre de Música in San Juan, PR. She earned a Master of Choral Conducting from Temple University, and a Doctorate in Musical Arts at the University of Maryland in College Park.

Her choral music and arrangements are published by Boosey and Hawkes and by the Roger Dean Publishing Company, a division of The Lorenz Corporation.

Russian-American conductor Elena Sharkova is recognized nationally and internationally as an inspirational, versatile, and effective conductor, choral clinician, music educator, and lecturer. She has conducted professional, university, youth, and community choirs and orchestras in 17 countries across North America, Asia, Eastern and Western Europe, Russia, and the Middle East. Elena has served as a jury member at numerous national and international music festivals and competitions. An expert on Russian choral music, Elena has lectured extensively on its repertoire and performance practices and conducted several U.S. premieres of Russian contemporary compositions.

Elena Sharkova regularly appears with professional artists; some of most notable conducting engagements include Kronos Quartet, actor Ryan Gossling’s rock play “Deadman’s Bones,” and spring 2012 series of performances with Grammy Award winning “orchestra of voices” male choir Chanticleer as one of the ensemble’s 2011-2012 Guest Music Directors. As a soprano, Elena Sharkova has performed and recorded with one of Russia’s finest professional choirs Lege Artis and appears on five studio CDs on SonyClassical label. As Artistic Director of Symphony Silicon Valley Chorale, Elena Sharkova has prepared and conducted the chorus in over 40 major choral-orchestral works such as Ralph Vaughn Williams’ Dona Nobis Pacem and Five Mystical Songs, Handel’s Messiah, Mozart’s Requiem, Poulenc’s Gloria, Brahms German Requiem and Nanie, Bruckner’s Te Deum, Orff’s Carmina Burana, and many others. Under Sharkova’s direction, Chorale presented complete performances of the monumental masterpiece of Russian liturgical music – Rachmaninoff’s All-Night Vigil in 2008, and in 2011 premiered the new edition of Ippolitov-Ivanov’s All-Night Vigil, op. 43.

Regarded for her passion for non-Western, cross-genre, and multi-cultural music, Elena and Chorale delighted South Bay audiences with performances of such folk-inspired compositions as Navidad Nuestra and Missa Criolla by Argentinean composer Ariel Ramirez, Caribbean Mass by contemporary American composer Glen McClure, and jazz-inspired Mass in Blue by English composer Will Todd.

Artistic Director of the 250-voice strong Cantabile Youth Singers of Silicon Valley since 2004, Elena Sharkova conducts CYS’s top performing and touring choirs, Vocalise and Ensemble, and oversees all educational and performance aspects of the program. Under her direction, Cantabile made solo appearance on the legendary stage of Carnegie Hall in 2005 and 2010 and toured Estonia, Finland, Russia, and England.

Elena Sharkova was born and raised in St. Petersburg, Russia, where she received an undergraduate degree in music education and piano, and a graduate degree in conducting from St. Petersburg State Rimski-Korsakov Conservatory. From 1988 to 1993, Elena served as Chair of the Choral Department of the Preparatory Music School at the Conservatory where she conducted four children’s choruses and taught the innovative Ogorodnov Method to graduate students. In 1996, Elena received her second graduate degree in conducting from Western Michigan University where she studied with Dr. Craig Arnold.

Elena has had a privilege to serve as guest conductor of all-state, divisional, and national honor choirs for American Choral Directors Association, Music Educators National Conference, Organization of American Kodàly Educators, Association for Music in International Schools, Manhattan Concert Productions, Music Celebrations International, Distinguished Concerts International and Heritage Festivals of Gold. Elena lives in San Jose with her wine-maker husband Tony Craig and their son Sasha.

Beverly Taylor, Professor of Music at University of Wisconsin-Madison (retired) and Director of the Madison Symphony Chorus, is a frequent guest conductor at festivals throughout the United States. She has been recognized by critic Richard Dyer (The Boston Globe) as a conductor who "has the crucial gift of inspiring people to give of their best, and beyond."

Ms. Taylor assumed the post of Director of Choral Activities at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1995, where she is director of the Concert Choir and the Choral Union, and leads the graduate choral conducting program. From 1989-2012, she was conductor of the Boston Bar Association Orchestra, and for seven years the Music Director of the Back Bay Chorale, in which she conducted concerts with the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra and other professional orchestras. Their recording of Robert Kyr's Passion According to Four Evangelists is available on the New Albion label. She served as Assistant Conductor of the Madison Symphony Orchestra from 1996-2018.

In 1995, Ms. Taylor completed 17 years as the Associate Director of Choral Activities at Harvard University. In this position, she directed both the prize-winning Radcliffe Choral Society and the Harvard-Radcliffe Chorus. She led the groups on frequent domestic and international tours, directed a number of premieres of American music, and produced two recordings on the AFKA label.

As a guest conductor, Ms. Taylor has led the Artur Rubinstein Philharmonic Orchestra in Poland, the St. Louis Symphony Chorus, the Vermont Symphony, the Harvard Chamber Orchestra, the Madison Opera, the U.S. Air Force Band and Orchestra, the Harvard Radcliffe Collegium Musicum, and the Wellesley Chamber Singers. She worked with John Williams to prepare for a July 4th concert with the Boston Pops Summer Esplanade Chorus.

A graduate of the University of Delaware and Boston University, Ms. Taylor has studied with Gustav Meier, Paul Vermel, Andrew Davis, Helmuth Rilling, Robert Shaw, Margaret Hillis, and Herbert Blomstedt. She has received a fellowship with Chorus America and an orchestral fellowship at Aspen. She was a 2016 finalist for the American Prize in choral conducting, college division, and a 2017 recipient of the Emily Mead Baldwin Award in the Creative Arts at UW-Madison.

March 6-Nationally recognized as a leader in the field of youth chorus directors, Emily Ellsworth served as Artistic Director of Anima – Young Singers of Greater Chicago (formerly Glen Ellyn Children’s Chorus) from 1996 – 2018. Under her direction, Anima won several national awards, including the 2014 Tribute Award from Chicago A Cappella, the 2013 ASCAP award for Adventurous Programming from Chorus America, the 2009 Dale Warland Singers Commissioning Award jointly given by the American Composers Forum and Chorus America, and the once-in-an-organizational lifetime Margaret Hillis Award for Choral Excellence from Chorus America (2008).

Ms. Ellsworth has additionally served as Lecturer in Music Performance at Northwestern University, conducting the University Singers, and as the advisor for the Opera Workshop choral series with Boosey & Hawkes publishers. She has served several times on the music panel of the National Endowment for the Arts, and has over 20 years of singing and teaching experience as a voice faculty member in various college and university settings. She has served the American Choral Directors’ Association as the Central Division Repertoire and Standards Chair for Children’s and Community Youth Choirs. In 2010, she was inducted as a National Honorary Member to the Sigma Alpha Iota Music Fraternity.

In great demand as a guest clinician and conductor, Ms. Ellsworth has conducted all-state choirs and festivals in over 30 states, the Northwest, North Central, and Southwest divisions of the American Choral Directors’ Association, and the 2019 national children's honor choir for ACDA's 60th Jubilee. She has conducted Anima by invitation at three national conferences of ACDA, 2 national conferences of Chorus America, as well as concert tours to six continents. She has prepared various ensembles for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Chicago Bach Project, Grant Park Symphony, the Berlin Philharmonic, Ravinia Festival, Music of the Baroque, and Chicago Sinfonietta, working with conductors including Esa-Pekka Salonen, Bernard Haitink, Claudio Abbado, Riccardo Muti, Christoph Eschenbach, James Conlon, and Sir Georg Solti. As a conductor with Manhattan Concert Productions, she has conducted festival performances in Carnegie and Avery Fisher Halls. International appearances have included festival choirs in Ireland; England, Hong Kong, Grand Cayman Island, Greece, and presentations for the national association of choral directors in Brazil.

Nationally recognized for her excellence in choral conducting, Dr. Iris S. Levine is founder and artistic director of VOX Femina Los Angeles, L.A.’s premier women’s chorus. Through her extensive experience with women’s choral literature, and innovative concert programming, Dr. Levine has charted VOX Femina on an impressive 22-year journey, building its prominence in the choral community by way of numerous appearances at ACDA (American Choral Directors Association) conventions and Chorus America conferences, and over 300 appearances throughout the United States, Mexico and Canada.

Dr. Levine is the Dean of the College of Letters, Arts, and Social Sciences at California State Polytechnic University in Pomona. Now in her 30th year at Cal Poly, Dr. Levine served as Department Chair and Professor of Music and conducted the Kellogg Chamber Singers, taught Beginning Conducting, Choral Conducting and Music Education courses. Dr. Levine earned her Doctorate in Choral Music from the University of Southern California under the tutelage of Rod Eichenberger and James Vail, and she holds a Masters degree in Choral Conducting from Temple University in Philadelphia, where she studied with Alan Harler.

Dr. Levine authored the chapter on “Working with the Women’s Community Choir” in the 2012 GIA publication: Conducting Women’s Choirs: Strategies for Success. Dr. Levine is the editor for the Iris S. Levine Treble Choral Series with Pavane Publishing and is highly sought as guest clinician and adjudicator for choral festivals throughout the country.

Dr. Sandra Peter is the Acting Director of Choral Activities at Stetson University (DeLand, FL) and conducts Choral Union and the Stetson Men. She recently served as a Guest Conductor for Magnum Chorum (Minneapolis, MN), Interim Director of Choirs at Florida Gulf Coast University, and Visiting Professor of Music at Macalester College. From 1991-2013, Dr. Peter taught in the music department and conducted choirs at Luther College, Decorah, Iowa. She was a part of a team of colleagues that saw extraordinary growth to Luther's music program. During this time period choral participation increased from 350 singers in five choirs to 550 students in six choirs, and the program remains strong today. Her ensembles at Luther, Aurora (select first-year women, 100 voices) and Cathedral Choir (select second-year students, 100 mixed voices) toured annually, released recordings, commissioned pieces, and performed at conferences. For over twenty years Dr. Peter served on the artistic committee and conducted Christmas at Luther, an Emmy Award-winning event that is televised annually nationwide. She has conducted All-State and honor choirs in twenty U. S. states, as well as in Singapore and Oman. Recent teaching residencies include engagements at Syracuse University and Augustana University (Sioux Falls, SD).

Actively involved in the process of creating new music, her choirs have premiered works by Libby Larsen, Eric Whitacre, Stephen Paulus, Ola Gjeilo, Jocelyn Hagen, Shawn Kirchner, Kevin Jay Isaacs, Abbie Betinis, Timothy Takach, Edie Hill, Gwyneth Walker, Mack Wilberg, Aaron David Miller, Daniel Kallman, Ben Allaway, and Melba Williamson. A skilled choral arranger, Dr. Peter's works are published by MorningStar Music, Carl Fischer Music, and the Neil Kjos Company. She is also a contributor to Conducting Women's Choirs: Strategies for Success (GIA Publications, 2012). Luther College Aurora recordings, Finding a voice (2006) and Using our voice (2010) are available online.

Dr. Peter is an active member of American Choral Directors Association, the College Music Society, Chorus America, and a charter member of The National Collegiate Choral Organization. She has been invited to speak at national meetings of both NCCO and ACDA and has performed in and conducted ensembles at several regional and national ACDA conferences. Her experience includes many years conducting choirs of all ages at First Lutheran Church in Decorah, Iowa, and most recently serving as Director of Music at First Presbyterian Church in DeLand, FL. She was a founding member of the National Lutheran Choir. A native of Saint Paul, Minnesota, Dr. Peter holds degrees from Concordia College (Moorhead, MN), University of Arizona and the University of Iowa.

March 7-Dr. Gloria Harrison Quinlan, a native of Houston, Texas, received the Bachelor of Music Education degree in Voice from Texas Southern University, the Master of Music in Voice from Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado and the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Voice from The University of Texas at Austin. After a position as Assistant Professor of Music at Knoxville College in Knoxville, Tennessee, she was Associate Professor of Music at the University of the Virgin Islands, St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, and later served as Chair of the Music Department. She also served as Chair of the Humanities and Fine Arts Department at Huston-Tillotson University, Austin, Texas, and is currently Professor of Music, Voice/Choral and Director of the Huston-Tillotson University Concert Choir.

She studied Voice with Ruth Stewart (Texas Southern University), Larry Day (Colorado State University) and the late Martha Deatherage (University of Texas), and coached with Gerard Souzay, the late Darryl Hobson-Byrd and the late David Garvey. Dr. Quinlan studied choral conducting with the late Ruthabel Rollins at TSU.

Dr. Quinlan has enjoyed success as a performer, in opera, as a soloist with ensembles, and as a recitalist, throughout the United States and the Caribbean. Significant performances include: Soprano soloist in a performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the Caribbean Chorale and Puerto Rico Symphony; Soprano soloist with the Austin Civic Chorus and Sinfonietta in a performance of the Brahms Requiem; Soprano Soloist with the Capitol City Men’s Chorus; and Soprano Soloist with the Austin Singers in a performance of the Brahms Requiem. She recently recorded with the Trombone Choir of The Butler School of Music, University of Texas at Austin. She has also performed with the Scott Joplin Orchestra of Houston, Texas.

Dr. Quinlan has received acclaim as a choral conductor. She founded the Concert Choir of the University of the Virgin Islands, St. Thomas, Virgin Islands. Her choir at Huston-Tillotson University performed for President Jimmy Carter. President George W. Bush invited the Huston-Tillotson University Choir to perform at the opening of the Texas State Museum (a performance broadcast nationwide). Dr. Quinlan was also selected as the choir conductor for the Lady Bird Johnson funeral service. She served as Minister of Music for Ebenezer Baptist Church from 1997 to 2020. She served as a Regional Conductor for the 105 Voices of History Historically Black Colleges and Universities National Concert Choir in 2009 and 2010, and made her conducting debut at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in September, 2011, directing the 105 Voices of History. She also served as the Vocal Coach for the 105 Voices of History.

Her University choir performed the Duke Ellington Sacred Concert with an All Star Jazz Band in 2009 and 2010, in collaboration with the Austin Chamber Music Center. In 2009, members of her choir also appeared in a production and recording of Duke Ellington’s opera, Queenie Pie, in collaboration with the Opera Department of the Butler School of Music, University of Texas at Austin.

Honors include the Danforth Compton Fellowship, Graduate Opportunity Fellowship, and a Graduate Scholarship Award from General Conference, Seventh Day Adventist Church. She also received the Fine Arts Award as an outstanding Music Educator by the National Sorority of Phi Delta Kappa, Inc., Delta Beta Chapter, and the Outstanding Achievement in Fine Arts award from the National Women of Achievement, Inc. She is a member of the National Association of Teachers of Singing, Music Educators National Conference, Texas Music Educators Conference, American Choral Directors Association, Texas Choral Directors Association, Honorary member of Golden Key International Honour Society and NAACP Huston-Tillotson Chapter. Dr. Quinlan is also a proud member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.

Dr. Quinlan and husband Quincy Quinlan make their home in Austin, Texas. They have one son, Mykal (and wife Krystle).

For 2019-2020 Kennedy Center Citizen Artist, Alysia Lee, her role as an artist, arts educator, teaching artist and arts advocate, gives her a broad perspective of the arts ecosystem. Alysia's work has received national recognition for advancing access, equity, visibility, representation, and power-sharing between artists, organizations, and communities. Key to her method is leadership development, building strong partnerships, and intersectional approaches to engagement while centering artistic excellence, creativity, social justice, and multiculturalism.

She is the Founder and Artistic Director of Sister Cities Girlchoir (SCG), an El Sistema-inspired, girl empowerment, choral academy with programming in Pennsylvania, Maryland and New Jersey. Lee provided strategic oversight of the program growth from the 20-participant pilot to 300+ membership.

Alysia Lee is currently the education program supervisor for Fine Arts education for the Maryland State Department of Education where she shares her vision of statewide equity and excellence across five arts disciplines: music, dance, visual arts, theatre, and media arts. She is a proud member of the State Education Agency Directors of Arts Education (SEADAE).

Recent recognitions include The Knight Foundation, Stockton Bartol Rush Foundation, National Association of University Women and the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation. Recent speaking/writing engagements include Arts Education Partnership, Chorus America, Americans for the Arts, Maryland Citizens for the Arts, Maryland Music Educators Association, Maryland Theatre Educators Association and TEDX.

A Baltimore native, Lee is an alumna of Maryland schools, including George Washington Carver Center for Arts & Technology. She received a bachelor degree from University of North Carolina School for the Arts and a graduate degree from Peabody Conservatory. In 2011, Lee was selected from an international pool of applicants to the third cohort of the Sistema Fellowship at New England Conservatory. Alysia also completed Executive Education programs at Harvard University and La Salle University.

Dr. Julie Yu is Co-Director of Choral Studies at Kansas State University, where she is part of a team that oversees seven choral ensembles and teaches undergraduate and graduate choral conducting.

She holds a Bachelor of Music degree in music education from the University of Central Oklahoma, Master of Music degree in choral conducting from Oklahoma State University, and the Doctorate of Musical Arts degree in choral conducting from the University of North Texas. Before joining the Kansas State faculty, she taught at Norman North High School in Norman, Oklahoma and San José State University.

She has given presentations and her choirs have performed for conferences of the Kansas Music Educators Association, Missouri Music Educators Association, Oklahoma Choral Directors Association, the American Choral Directors Association and the European Music Educators Association. She is the Southwest American Choral Directors Association President and a 2018 ACDA-ICEP Conducting Fellow (to Kenya).

INTERNATIONAL-Choir and Orchestra conductor, pianist and singer, Digna Guerra is one of the most emblematic figures of the Cuban, and therefore Latin American, music scene. Since she was four, she starts with great skill to show her artistic vocation. Her first studies at the Coral School of Havana. Graduated from the very first course of Art Instructors with headquarters in the Hotel Habana Libre where she also begins a great work forging musicians and musical groups and all sorts of choirs. She studied at the Hochschule für Musik "Hanns Eisler" in Berlin, Germany; graduating with honors in choral direction with Professor Horst Muller, piano with Eberhard Rebling and singing with Willie Feldman. She also continues in the specialty of Orchestral Direction.

Throughout her career she has created and advised numerous musical groups. She has been director of the Chair of Choral Direction of the National School of Art, Director of the Choir of the ENA, Director of the National Opera of Cuba, Director of the National Choir of Cuba, integrates the Scientific Methodological Council for the creation of the Higher Institute of Art. Actively participates in the development of curricula and programs of the choral conducting specialty. Under her tutelage many generations of students have graduated and has tutored numerous Degree Theses.

Since 1975, she has been the Director of the National Choir of Cuba, where she has displayed an important cultural work and dissemination of the most outstanding works of the universal repertoire; especially the Cuban choral work ranging from the polyphony of the fifteenth century to the most complex contemporary works that include highly advanced technical procedures of composition. In 1981, she founded the Chamber Choir Entrevoces, a group with which she has won numerous International Awards, highlighting the sound quality and the very refined degree of interpretation of works from the universal repertoire.

She held the position of Technical Deputy Director of the Cuban Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Maestro Leo Brouwer during the celebration in Havana of the 4th International Fair of the Cuban album "Cubadisco 2000". He has also recorded numerous soundtracks for cinema. Digna has lead master classes, workshops, courses of Choral Direction and has been jury in various festivals throughout almost all nations of the American continent as well as in Poland, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Belgium, Spain and the former Yugoslavia.

She is vice-president of the Choral Federation of the Caribbean and member of the National Council of the UNEAC, of the World Federation of Choirs, of the Cuban Committee of the International Council of Music of UNESCO and of the Cuban Movement for Peace. The many, many prizes and recognitions she has received, are a small token of gratitude that scarcely show the immeasurable contribution that Digna Guerra has given to humanity.

INTERNATIONAL-“I was raised to be limitless… [and] I was born an artist.” These are the words of 27-year-old Ofentse Pitse, a woman who is carving her name into the history books. Pitse is the first black South African woman to conduct and own the first ever all-black orchestra, Anchored Sound.

The Mabopane-born architect believes her musical gift is a calling; her late grandfather Otto Pitse was also an orchestra conductor and trumpet player. She first played an instrument at the age of 12. She grew up in a single-parent home and her mom was always supportive of her endeavors. She fell in love with sounds from there and was exposed to many types of music, ranging from gospel to jazz. She credits her grandfather as well and believes she is his reincarnation. People have shown their appreciation and enthusiasm for a female orchestra conductor.

“Conducting is a whole different ballgame. You have to have a particular understanding, the mind and the spirit for each and every instrument. You have to have an understanding, you have to do a lot of research. "You have to have a certain kind of confidence to stand on that podium and lift a baton and conduct people who are looking at you saying, 'but she’s a woman', because they are used to these old men standing in front of them, conducting. You have to walk in there with a certain kind of reverence and confidence.”

Pitse is a forward-thinking and bold young woman and she credits her mentors for her classical music knowledge as she does not have a formal musical qualification. “My teaching was unconventional, nothing was on paper. The furthest I went in music was grade three or grade four and everything else was basically mentoring. Early this year, I reached out to two of the best conductors, one being Mr Thami Zungu, the head of music at TUT and Mr Gerben Grooten, the conductor of the UP philharmonic. These are amazing conductors… they have spent a lot of their time teaching and crafting this talent within me,” Pitse said.

In 2017, Pitse started a youth choir in a small classroom in Katlehong where she handpicked youth that were classically-trained from Soweto, Katlehong, Tembisa and Pretoria. “The common denominator among them was that they wanted to get an education and showcase their talent on the world stage and prove to their peers that they can attain their dreams,” she says. This drove Pitse to look for sponsorship and funding to help the children further their education. The choir then grew to become the orchestra. Pitse found through her research that there is no all-black orchestra in the world. She approached established classical musicians in various orchestras to boost the ensemble, which gradually grew from 8 to 19 to 40-piece symphony orchestra. “A lot of them thought I was crazy and some of them were like, 'we are as eager [to work with you]as we definitely see you as a leader and we want to follow what you’re doing.'”

Besides the orchestra being all-black, the other twist to it is that all the profits garnered from their various performances is to go straight into helping the members. Pitse used to take money from her salary to assist struggling members of the outfit with registration fees, printing, credit fees and any other needs they have while in university. The orchestra has been together for a few months. “It has only really been a few months, but it’s something that I really believe in, it’s a baby but a very strong baby.” The orchestra has a vocal coach who helps with training the members as though some are studying music at tertiary while others are pursuing other avenues, but still want to utilize their talents. Her vision for the orchestra is that they contribute in shedding light on African composers and propel each other and other young black youth to excellence. “I’m a believer in the black narrative and a believer in the black child.”

INTERNATIONAL-Remembering National Artist for Music Andrea O. Veneracion is the founder of the Philippine Madrigal Singers, Asia’s most awarded choral ensemble. An authority on choral music, she is recognized for spearheading the choral movement in the Philippines. She served as adjudicator in international music competitions.

She was born and raised in Manila, Philippines on July 11, 1928, and earned her Bachelor of Music degrees in Piano and Voice at the University of the Philippines Diliman graduating cum laude. She was a lyric soprano soloist in various Oratorio works and in the Opera Stage. She was an accomplished pianist and accompanist and was the accompanist of National Artist for Music, Jovita Fuentes for a number of years.

Later on, she continued to pursue her Master’s Degree in Voice at Indiana University School of Music – Bloomington as a Fulbright scholar, where she encountered the Indiana University Madrigal Singers which rallied the music of the Renaissance period. Upon her return to the Philippines in 1963, she established a singing group with the same idea. This group was initially exclusive of U.P. faculty members and students and became officially known as the University of the Philippines Madrigal Singers. She established a tradition for which the Madz, as they are fondly called, are known for: unlike most choirs, the Madz is seated in a semicircular formation without a conductor. The Choirmaster is at the left-most end of the circle who leads the group by giving their cues.

Prof. Veneracion with Madz 1996 the batch that won the 1996 Grand Prix in Tolosa, Spain. Under her direction, the Philippine Madrigal Singers won major awards in international choral competitions – Spittal, Austria; Arezzo and Gorizia, Italy; Neuchâtel, Switzerland; Debrecen, Hungary; Varna, Bulgaria; Tolosa and Cantonigros, Spain; and Marktoberdorf, Germany. In 1996, she led the Philippine Madrigal Singers to its victory in the 1996 International Choral Competition in Tolosa, Spain. This made them eligible to compete for the 1997 European Choral Grand Prix for Choral Singing and eventually won the title in Tours, France.

She is the founder and first conductor of the Asian Institute for Liturgy and Music (AILM) Chorale. In 1997, she was awarded the TOFIL (The Outstanding Filipino) Award for Culture and the Arts For her contributions to the development of choral singing in the Philippines. In 1999, she was named National Artist for Music, the highest cultural award bestowed by the Philippine government for an individual. In 2001, she retired as the Choirmaster of the Philippine Madrigal Singers. She personally selected Mark Anthony Carpio, her Assistant Choirmaster at that time, to be her successor. The Madz turnover ceremonies were held in a special concert at the Cultural Center of the Philippines coinciding with the launch of her biography “A Life Shaped By Music” by Marjorie Evasco. She continued to guide the Madz under Carpio’s direction by joining them in their tours: 2002 in North America, 2003 in Asia and 2004 in Europe. She was able to witness Carpio’s first international competition as Choirmaster (and the Madz’s first competition after 7 years) at the 2004 International Competition of Habaneras and Polyphony in Torrevieja, Spain, where the Madz won First Places for both categories.

INTERNATIONAL-Karen Grylls ONZM, is the Undergraduate Advisor and Associate Professor in Conducting and Head of Choral Studies at the University of Auckland. She has directed the Auckland Dorian Choir (1985-1998), assumed the position of Musical Director of TOWER NZ Youth Choir in 1989 and founded TOWER Voices NZ in March 1998. In addition to being the current Musical Director of both of these national choirs Karen also conducts the Chamber Choir at the University of Auckland and directs courses in choral ensemble skills.

Karen is much in demand as a choral clinician and has many CD recordings to her credit. Invitations to adjudicate have taken her to Australia, Singapore, Tolosa, Hong Kong, Gorizia, Xiamen and Marktoberdorf. In 1996 the University honoured her with a Distinguished Teaching Award in Music and in 1999 she received a New Year’s Honour (ONZM) for her services to choral music. Karen has recently been appointed to the board of the International Federation for Choral Music IFCM. In May 2005 she was awarded an Artistic Leadership Scholarship Award from Creative NZ to attend the Seventh World Choral Symposium in Kyoto. In 2006 she was awarded the KBB Citation for Services to NZ music from the Composers’ Association of NZ and the Lilburn Trust Award for services to NZ Music. Also in 2006, “Spirit of the Land”, recorded by TOWER Voices NZ, won the NZ Tui Award for the best classical album. She also held an appointment as Artistic Director of the Exultate Chamber Singers in Toronto, 2011-2013.

INTERNATIONAL-Dr. Ana Paulina Alvarez Sandoval completed her undergraduate studies at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana where she obtained the title of Music teacher studying with teachers Ricardo Jaramillo and Alejandro Zuleta. Subsequently, she obtained a master's degree from the University of Victoria, Canada, under the mentorship of Dr. Gerald King and Ph.D. from the University of Toronto under the supervision of Dr. Hilary Apfelstadt. Her doctoral research focuses on the teaching and performance of choral music of Latin America. She was selected as one of eight “Conducting Fellows” making her Carnegie debut Hall in New York at the Transient Glory Conducting Symposium in February 2012, and as one of the five directors for the "2012 Toronto Mendelssohn Choir Conductors Symposium ”. She was also nominated for the "2014 Leslie Bell Prize for Choral Conducting" which was awarded by the Leslie Bell Scholarship Fund and the Ontario Arts Council in Ontario, Canada. She is currently Director of the Music Department of the Faculty of Arts of the Pontificia Javeriana University and is director of the Javeriano Chamber Choir.

Described as “a bubbling stream of a voice, remarkably smooth down into a resonant, rich low register” (SF Chronicle), Dr. Ollie Watts Davis earns superlatives wherever she sings. Since her New York debut at Carnegie, she has appeared with many of the nation’s leading orchestras, including the San Francisco, Minnesota, Houston, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, and Dallas Symphony orchestra; in opera with the San Luis Obispo Mozart Festival; the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis; Des Moines Metro Opera; Opera Theatre of Springfield; and Illinois Opera Theatre; and internationally for performances and classes in North, Central, and South America; Europe; Africa; and Asia.

Dr. Davis is passionate about performances of historic significance, and has performed in prestigious venues in Pakistan, Costa Rica, France, and throughout the United States. Recent presentations include I’m a Stranger Here Myself, as part of the exhibit, With Firmness in the Right: Lincoln and the Jews at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum in Springfield (IL), where she also presented The Concert that Shook the Establishment, a re-creation of Marian Anderson’s 1939 Easter morning concert on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. She completed a residency at the University of Arkansas as a performing artist and master class clinician and was featured in the PBS documentary The Caged Bird Sings, on the life and music of African American composer Florence Price. She has released two recordings as conductor and soprano with the Black Chorus at the University of Illinois and is featured on Rootsongs, with the Jupiter Quartet. These come in addition to her solo recording of spiritual arrangements, Here’s One, which was featured on National Public Radio.

Recent creative activity includes presenting at the National Association of Teachers of Singing 75tth Anniversary Transatlantic Pedagogy Tour to Germany, in addition to concerts and classes in West Virginia, Illinois, Wisconsin, New York, and Chicago. In 2019, she directed the 14th Black Sacred Music Symposium and the 3rd Black Chorus at Illinois Summer Youth Music camp at Illinois. Current year engagements include guest artist appearances in Chicago, Peoria, and Indianapolis; and as Master Teacher for the National Association of Teachers of Singing Intern Program at the University of Dayton (Ohio). In addition to her concert career, Dr. Davis uses her voice for important work as the writer of the mentoring curriculum, Talks My Mother Never Had With Me, and as a passionate mentor for young singers with StudiO: the Ollie Watts Davis Institute for Vocal Arts.

Ollie Watts Davis is the Suzanne and William Allen Distinguished Professor of Music at the University of Illinois and serves as Professor of Voice, Provost’s Fellow, and Music Director and Conductor of the Black Chorus. In 2019, she was awarded the Outstanding Faculty Leadership Award; her second Campus Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2014; the Illinois Student Senate Teaching Excellence Award in 2012; and was named a University Scholar in 2008, one of the highest honors bestowed upon a member of the faculty at the University of Illinois. Other awards include the UI College of Fine and Applied Arts Outstanding Faculty Award, a Recognition Award from the UI Alumni Association, and the Bronze Medallion of Honor by the UI Women’s Association, where she was recognized as a woman who through example and service has used her talents to enrich the lives of others.

Additional awards include the Charles E. Walton Award presented by the Vivian G. Harsh Research Society of the Chicago Public Library for her inestimable contributions in 2016 ; the “Key to the City” for her musical contributions to the cultural life of Champaign, Illinois in 2015; the National Association for the Study and Performance of African American Music National Award in 2013; and the 40 North Lifetime ACE Award in 2012, which honors her accumulated successes for continued, outstanding support of the arts in the Champaign-Urbana community. Dr. Davis is a national honorary member of Sigma Alpha Iota; and holds honorary membership in the National Society of Arts and Letters, and Phi Theta Kappa.

Dr. Peggy Dettwiler is Professor of Music and Director of Choral Activities at Mansfield University in Mansfield, Pennsylvania, where she conducts the Concert Choir, Festival Chorus, and Chamber Singers, and teaches choral conducting and methods. Before coming to Mansfield, she was a graduate assistant conductor to Donald Neuen at the Eastman School of Music, where she received a Doctor of Musical Arts Degree in Conducting. She also has a Master of Music Degree in Choral Conducting from the University of Texas at San Antonio and a Master of Music Degree in Music Education from the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Dr. Dettwiler is past president of the Pennsylvania Chapter of the ACDA and is currently serving as the President-Elect for the Eastern Division of the American Choral Directors Association.

Dr. Dettwiler has been a guest conductor and lecturer throughout the United States, working with singers of all ages from university, public school, church, to community choruses. Prior to coming to Mansfield in 1990, she was Director of Choral Activities at St. Mary's University in San Antonio, Texas, and Choral Director at Mt. Horeb High School in Mt. Horeb, Wisconsin. She has developed two pedagogical DVDs entitled, “Developing a Choral Color Palette” and “Sing in Style,” and has given these presentations at numerous ACDA (American Choral Directors Association) and NAfME (National Association for Music Education) Conventions. Dr. Dettwiler received the 2010 Elaine Brown Award for Choral Excellence from the Pennsylvania Chapter of the American Choral Directors Association and was awarded 2nd place both in 2011 and 2013 for The American Prize for Choral Conductors. She made her conducting debut in Carnegie Hall in January of 2014 and presented an interest session at the World Choral Symposium in Seoul, Korea, in August of 2014. Dettwiler received the Presidential Coin for Excellence from General Francis Hendricks, President of Mansfield University and was designated “2015 Honored Artist of the American Prize.” In 2016, she served on the jury for the World Choir Games in Sochi, Russia, and was one of ten conductors from seven countries, who participated in the course, CONDUCTING 21C: Musical Leadership for a New Century, held in Stockholm, Sweden. In January of 2017, Dettwiler served as Artistic Director for the concert, “Of War, Peace, and the Power of Music,” held in Carnegie Hall and sponsored by Performing Arts Educators.

The Mansfield University Concert Choir, which she has conducted for twenty-seven years, has been invited for twenty consecutive years to perform at state, regional, national, or international choral conventions. In 2008, the Concert Choir won the World Championship in the Gospel & Spiritual Category at the World Choir Games in Graz, Austria. In 2011, the Concert Choir won first place and two second-place prizes at the International Eisteddfod in Llangollen, Wales, and was awarded the 2011 American Prize in Choral Performance for the College/University Division. In 2012, the Concert Choir won three gold medals at the World Choir Games in Cincinnati, Ohio, including second place in the Mixed Youth Choir Category. In 2014, the Choir gave their debut performance in Carnegie Hall as a part of the Performing Arts Educators 8th-Annual Invitational, and received three gold medals, including 2nd and 3rd place awards at the 2014 World Choir Games in Riga, Latvia. The Concert Choir has performed in sixteen countries during their seven European Tours.

Dr. Susan Brumfield is Professor of Music Education at Texas Tech University, and holds a Ph.D. in Music Education from the University of Oklahoma. She is known throughout the United States and Europe as a clinician, consultant, author, composer, arranger and choral conductor. Dr. Brumfield is the author Jean Ritchie'sKentucky Mother Goose, a book and CD memoir with American folk legend Jean Ritchie, which features rare and never-before-seen illustrations by Maurice Sendak.

Other publications include Hot Peas and Barley-O: Children's Songs and Games from Scotland and Over the Garden Wall: Children's Songs and Games from England. Dr. Brumfield is currently working on Giro Giro Tondo: Children's Songs and Games from Italy. She is a contributing author for John Jacobson's Music Express Magazine and McGraw Hill's Music Studio.

An internationally recognized expert in the Kodály approach, Dr. Brumfield is the author of First, We Sing! Kodály-Inspired Teaching in the Music Classroom (Hal Leonard), a set of Kodály-based of curriculum and resource materials for K-5 music. This comprehensive series includes the Teacher's Guide, Teaching Strategies for Primary Grades, Teaching Strategies for Intermediate Grades, Practice Activities for Rhythmic and Melodic Elements and First, We Sing: Songbooks One and Songbook Two. Forthcoming volumes include Songbook Three, Active Listening in the Music Classroom and Songs for Reading and Writing. Other ancillary materials include applications for interactive whiteboard, student workbooks and classroom materials.

Founder and Artistic Director of The West Texas Children's Chorus, Dr. Brumfield is also in frequent demand throughout the world as a commissioned composer and guest conductor. Her choral music is published with Hal Leonard Music, Colla Voce Music and BriLee/Carl Fischer, and includes more than forty titles. With four choirs consisting of singers from Kindergarten through college, the West Texas Children's Chorus organization serves children throughout the South Plains area, and serves as a teaching lab for TTU Music Education students. In addition to performances with the Texas Tech University Choirs, the Lubbock Chorale and the Lubbock Symphony Orchestra, the choirs have performed at the Texas Music Educators' Conference, national conferences of the Organization of American Kodály Educators and the Amerian Orff Schulwerk Association, and has been featured in concerts at Carnegie Hall and other prestigious venues in NYC. The choir travels throughout the US on its bi-annual tours. For more information about The West Texas Children's Chorus, please visit www.wtccsings.com.

Dr. Brumfield was honored in both 2012 and 2014 with the Texas Tech University College of Visual and Performing Arts Award for Outstanding Research, and as a two-time finalist for the President's Book Award. In 2015, Dr. Brumfield was the recipient of the Louisiana Tech University Outstanding Alumni Achievement Award.

A native of Washington, DC, Dr. Diane White-Clayton holds Ph.D. and M.A. degrees in music composition from the University of California at Santa Barbara and a B.A. degree in music from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri with emphases in composition, voice, and piano. As a rotary scholar, she studied classical piano at the Ecole Normale de Musique in Paris, performing solo gospel concerts throughout Europe as an Ambassador of Goodwill.

Affectionately known as “Dr. Dee,” Diane travels extensively as a vocalist, pianist, composer, conductor, workshop clinician, and speaker. She has held numerous positions at universities, colleges and churches across the country including Artistic Director with the Washington Performing Arts Society; Artist-in-Residence and Assistant Director of African-American Student Development at Appalachian State University; Artist-in-Residence at Westmont College; Composer-in-Residence at Indiana University of Pennsylvania; Scholar-in-Residence at Grinnell College in Grinnell, Iowa; Loyola Marymount University; and Choral Conductor at the New Christ Memorial Church under legendary gospel great, Pastor Andraé Crouch. For thirteen years, she was a choral conductor at the 6,000-member Faithful Central Bible Church in Inglewood, California under the headship of internationally esteemed, Bishop Kenneth C. Ulmer, where she founded the acclaimed Sacred Praise Chorale.

Dr. Dee works as a vocal clinician consultant with the Disney Performing Arts Conservatory in Anaheim, California. Possessing a three-and-a-half octave range, Diane weaves her high operatic soprano voice with her soulful gospel roots in her self-produced recordings. As a composer, her works have been performed at such venues as the John F. Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, and the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, with her most popular piece being a choral work entitled “Clap Praise” which has been featured across the globe. Whether arrangements of African, Korean or African-American folk songs, her arrangement of the Hatikvah, her atonal classical works, or her inspirational sacred or gospel songs, Dr. Dee’s compositions and performances demonstrate a mélange of the power of gospel music, the technique of classical music and the colors of jazz.

An inspirational speaker and author, Dr. Dee combines an inviting genuineness with humor, eloquence and faith. Dr. Dee is a member of the faculty of the University of California, Los Angeles. She is founder and CEO of BYTHAX, a company committed to supporting artists in sacred and in secular arenas, through Christian counsel, mentoring, and networking with publishing, workshops, vocal coaching and live performances. She is the artistic director of the famed Albert McNeil Jubilee Singers, known for their international influence as classical performers of Negro Spirituals. And she is the founding director of “Dr. Dee & the BYTHAX Ensemble,” a gifted, musically-diverse, professional vocal ensemble. BYTHAX stands for “Bringing You Talented, Heavenly-minded Artists with eXcellence!” Diane is the author of “Journey to the Altar,” an encouragement for single women who are waiting for that special love, inspired by her own story. Diane is happily married to her best friend and business partner, Joe Louis Clayton, former recording and touring Motown R&B percussionist.

Dr. Jing Ling-Tam is a professor of music who has garnered international recognition in North America, Europe, and Southeast Asia. Ling-Tam has conducted over 35 All-State Choirs and numerous American Choral Directors Association national and divisional honor choirs. An innovative and much sought after clinician/master teacher, she has been featured as a headliner at prestigious international, national, regional, and state choral conferences.

As director of choral studies at the University of Texas at Arlington, her choirs performed at national and regional ACDA conferences, Texas Music Educators Association Conferences, and toured in the US, Mexico, Canada, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Austria. Ling-Tam served as associate conductor, chorus master, and principal coach pianist for the Ft. Worth Opera Association for 16 seasons, and was on the faculty at the American Institute of Musical Studies, Graz, Austria for 11 summers.

Ling-Tam’s other credits include conducting the Taipei Symphony, the Coro de Madrigalistas of Mexico, and presenting workshops and lectures for the Children’s Palaces of NingBo, Xiamen and GuangZho in China; Festival 500, the Ontario Vocal Festival & Choral Conductors' Symposium, Podium 2008, the 2006 International Youth Choral Festival, and the 2007 and 2009 Salzburg Pedagogical Institute Winter Workshops. Ling-Tam also served on juries for the 2007 Third World Children's Choral Festival, , the Spittal an der Drau 45th International Choral Competition in Austria, and the 2008 World Choir Games in Austria.

She conducted the 2010 Australian National Choral Association’s Honor Choir and was a member of the international jury for the 2010 World Choir Games in China. Ling-Tam serves on the board of Chorus America.

Dr. Angela Kasper was recently hired at Western Washington University where she teaches four choirs and undergraduate courses in choral methods and global music traditions. Before this appointment, she was Director of Choral Activities at the University of St. Thomas for 20 years and Westminster College in Pennsylvania for six years.

After serving in Director of Choral Activities positions and fulfilling the expectations of these positions as per university and professional guidelines, Dr. Kasper has returned to her first love: choral pedagogy. She is rediscovering and redefining for herself what makes a meaningful choral experience and how best to place this evolving view at the center of her work with her own choirs and the professional development opportunities she provides for other choral educators. No longer bound to a choral ideal that was espoused during her own university education, Angie is exploring the choral community as a place to expand cultural awareness while experiencing the world’s group singing traditions. Collaboration with culture bearers and traveling abroad for her own study help her realize how little she knows about the vast subject she teaches!

Dr. Kasper is passionate about sharing what she has learned over the course of her career with other practicing choral teachers. In her work with master’s degree students, she hopes to empower young conductors to recognize and celebrate their unique strengths while encouraging them to lead with authenticity and vulnerability. In teaching undergraduate music education students, her goal is to help these future educators understand that collaborative choral rehearsals with ample time for student voice, student leadership, and student input into artistic interpretation are a much more enjoyable and just approach to ensemble music making than is the podium-driven model.

Angie is so fortunate to have met and worked with many young people while conducting honor choirs throughout the United States and abroad. Whether it be fourth graders in Indiana or high school students in the United Arab Emirates, she considers every experience to be a reminder of our shared humanity and the power of music to unite us. As she continues this work, Dr. Kasper is focused on inclusive enrichment activities that can serve all students regardless of economic status and experiential level.

Angie is forever grateful to all her teachers and mentors, including Dr. Mary Goetze, Mr. Robert Porco, Dr. Dennis Shrock, Dr. Karen Howard, Julie Schnepel, Dr. Jean Sinor, Shekela Wanyama, and Tim Fitzpatrick. Mostly though, she is grateful for her mom who gave up her own dream of being a choral director in order to raise a family in a manner that would allow her daughter to realize that dream instead.

Dr. Kiana Day Williams (‘05 BME, '08 MME) is an Assistant Professor of Music/Director of Choirs at Texas Southern University, where along with teaching lecture courses and Applied Voice, she conducts the TSU University Choir as well as the TSU Concert Chorale. Prior to TSU, Dr. Williams served as Director of Fine Arts at the historic Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church in Houston, TX, where her responsibilities ranged from leading Praise & Worship during worship services, conducting four of the church’s nine choral ensembles, directing the church’s community orchestra, and producing the church’s Christmas and Easter theatrical productions.

A native of Jackson, MS and 2001 graduate of Callaway High School, Dr. Kiana Day Williams graduated Magna cum Laude with a Bachelor of Music Education with Piano emphasis degree from JSU and went on to receive a Master of Music Education with Vocal Emphasis from JSU, graduating with a 4.0 GPA. She has also received the Doctorate of Musical Arts degree in Music Education with a Minor in Choral Conducting from the University of Houston in Houston, TX (’18).

During her tenure as a student at JSU, Dr. Williams was a dedicated member of the Sonic Boom of the South Marching Band and JSU Symphonic Wind Ensemble, student conductor for the JSU University Choir and Concert Chorale, an inaugural member of the Lady Tigers Soccer Team, Chaplain for the Gamma Rho chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., and was honored by her peers to be selected to reign as Miss Jackson State University 2004-2005.

Kiana’s teaching career began in Jackson, MS at Forest Hill High School where as Director of Choral Activities at Forest Hill High School, she rebuilt a struggling choral program and created a musical theatre curriculum, ultimately resulting in multiple superior-rated choral ensembles from 2006-2008. Additionally, during her tenure at Forest Hill, Kiana served as an arranger for the school’s marching band.

Upon moving to Houston, TX, Dr. Williams served as Lecturer of Music in the Moores School of Music at the University of Houston from 2008-2017, teaching courses for music majors and non-majors. She was also choral director at G.W. Carver High School for Technology, Engineering, and Performing Arts in Aldine ISD for the 2013-14 school year, with the Women’s Varsity Choir receiving superior ratings at the state level of choral competition. Dr. Williams also served as Music Director and Orchestra Leader for the school’s 2014 production of Lin Manuel Miranda’s In the Heights, which received the 2014 Tommy Tune Award for Best Orchestra.

Along with music teaching, Dr. Williams has served as a Program Manager for Houston Grand Opera as well as a Community Music Director at Theater Under the Stars (TUTS). A stellar vocal performer in her own right, Dr. Williams performs often at various venues and events in Houston, including being the guest artist at House of Blues’ World Famous Gospel Brunch and performing the National Anthem for Black Heritage Night at the 2018 Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo held in NRG Stadium. Dr. Williams lives in Humble, TX with her husband Calvin Williams, 2-year-old son Arian Noah and 15-month-old daughter Ariah Noelle.

Bishop Chantel R. Wright is an internationally celebrated choir director and the founder of Pneuma Ministries International. A native of Chicago, Illinois, Bishop Wright started her career as an award-winning choral conductor and received her formal education at Vander Cook College of Music, where she earned her BA degree in Music Education. As part of her undergraduate studies, Bishop Wright had the privilege of studying in London, England, with Ian Pleeth and traveled throughout Europe as a soloist. She started her professional career in Atlanta, Georgia, where she served on the music staff of Ebenezer Baptist Church — home of the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. – and as an educator in Dekalb County Public Schools. After seven years of service, Bishop Wright relocated to New York City and hit the ground running as the new Director of the Girls’ Choir of Harlem. Bishop Wright lent her talents to working with the youth of Queens, New York, as the Artistic Director of the Queens Symphony Orchestra Youth Gospel Choir, an honor bestowed on few women.

Chantel gained valuable experience as an orchestral conductor, which then inspired her to establish her own non-profit organization, Songs of Solomon: An Inspirational Ensemble, Inc. Almost immediately, Songs of Solomon flourished and was soon featured on major television networks and went on to win at competitions often times competing against adults. The Songs of Solomon ensemble also had the privilege of sharing the stage with American Idol winners, Kelly Clarkson and Fantasia Barrino, and served for five years at the US Tennis Open. Under Chantel’s leadership, The Songs of Solomon ensemble also performed with award winning recording artist, Elton John at Radio City Music Hall, sang with opera great, Jessye Norman at the Greenbrier Country Club. Jessye Norman was also the curator of the Honor Choral Music Festival conducted by Dr. Craig Jessop at the world famous Carnegie Hall, where today, the Ensemble is a mainstay. The ensemble has worked tirelessly over the past eighteen years under Chantel’s guidance and has garnered national and international acclaim.

Songs of Solomon was the featured chorus for the musical “Violet” on the Tony Awards. Songs of Solomon was selected to be a part of the inaugural Lip Sync Battle with Jimmy Fallon on network television. Having recently completing their recording project, “Variations of the War Cry,” Songs of Solomon is actively engaged across the United States and abroad as ambassadors of love. The Ensemble has been selected to present the work of 22nd Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith, I Will Tell You the Truth from her book of poetry, Wade in the Water. The letters that were written by slaves and former slaves will be debuted at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.

Being totally committed to the spiritual, intellectual and artistic growth of today’s youth, Chantel knows that the only way to shape a generation of spirited, world class musicians is to work in conjunction with the education system. She then went on to establish The Songs of Solomon Academy for the Arts – an organization that directly serves New York City students in leadership, instrumental, vocal music appreciation. Since its inception, the program has given an impressive number of students from the Tri-State area, performance opportunities that rival professional artists around the world. The Academy maintained an artistic partnership with Professional Performing Arts School, the Harlem School of the Arts and now serves students at the elementary school level. As part of Chantel’s love for young people, she has also been actively involved in secured detention centers in the New York area and has continued to work with Carnegie Hall’s Musical Connections project for youth in detention centers. To date Songs of Solomon have been consistently for the past four years were awarded the Neon Arts grant through the New York City Department of Juvenile Justice and Probation. Through “Let’s Burn: Culinary Arts Explosion, Debutante Cotillion and Songwriting Workshops, justice involved youth are equipped with real time experiences that better equip them to move back into the community. Chantel’s Songs of Solomon Academy for the Arts plans to implement The Sounds of Hope Chorale — a trial choral program aimed at fostering an appreciation for music and creating a safe haven for detained youth in secured and unsecured detention centers in Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Manhattan. The Chorale is poised to roll out the program nationally. Bishop Wright is often times found at the table when conversations are taking place that shape the most viable outcomes for the underserved and justice involved.

Bishop Wright has been sought out as a choral clinician nationally and internationally. For two consecutive years as the choir master for the Harare International Festival of the Arts in South Africa, as well as the Roma Gospel Festival in Rome, Italy. Chantel is a mainstay at the Ithaca Gospel Music Festival and is now presenting the Gospel at colleges and universities in the United States. As an initiative for aspiring artist, the government of the island of Bermuda engaged Chantel to do a series of workshops and a culminating festival. Most recently, Bishop Wright served at the Fede Gospel Festival in Barcelona, Spain.

Chantel is a recipient of the New York Times Teachers Who Matters Most Award, The Ebony Ecumenical Ensemble Community Service Award, and the Ephesus Seventh Day Adventist Community Service Award and is a member of the Riverside Club for Education. Recipient of a service award from The Administration for Child Services.

Chantel remains committed to building a literate music community, and also lends her time to the vocal music department of the Steinhardt School of Music at the New York University since 2008. She has recently joined the team at SAG-AFSTRA as the East Coast Sight-Singing Director, and continues her efforts to lift students and music teachers through her work with Metropolitan Opera. Moreover, she serves young people nationally and internationally through the arts organization partnerships, her uncompromised passion to see humanity win.

The highest calling in her life is to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. As a licensed and ordained Bishop, within the Christ Centered Ministries Assembly, she is responsible for Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky and Utah. Bishop Wright has established Pneuma Ministries, International where peoples’ lives are being changed. She was anointed by the late Kenneth H. Moales Sr. and opened the church and preached her first sermon simultaneously. In addition to her work in Harlem, she is a minister for the nations with the Wednesday night Pentecost Service where worshipers from all over the world converge for a blessing from God. Bishop Wright facilitates Safe Conversations workshops all over the country to enable dialogue that yield solutions to deep conflict. She is a Choral Union president of the Thomas Dorsey National Convention of Gospel Choirs and Choruses where she is on the national board of directors, and can also be found on WLIB as the host of “The Hour of Power.” Bishop Chantel R. Wright resides in New York City.

Dr. Deanna Joseph is Associate Professor of Music and Director of Choral Activities at the Georgia State University School of Music where she conducts the University Singers and leads the master’s program in choral conducting. In 2015, she was the recipient of the College of Arts and Sciences’ Outstanding Teacher Award at Georgia State, where she was selected out of a pool of over 800 faculty. A recent review of her work states, “[t]he choir sings with great musicality, excellent intonation, clear diction, and a healthy and beautiful pallet of tone colors…” (The Choral Scholar).

In May of 2017, the University Singers under Dr. Joseph’s leadership won first place in the renowned Marktoberdorf International Chamber Choir Competition while on a concert tour of Austria and Bavaria. In May of 2013, the University Singers competed in La Florilège Vocal de Tours where the choir placed second overall in the mixed choir category and Dr. Joseph was honored with the Prix du chef de choer (conducting prize). The Georgia State University Singers have been invited to perform at two Southern Division conventions of the American Choral Directors Association and at two conventions of the Georgia Music Educator’s Association during Dr. Joseph’s tenure at GSU, and the Georgia State University Choirs have been hired to sing two productions of David Bintley’s Carmina Burana with the Atlanta Ballet: in 2013 (North American premiere performances) and 2017. The choir’s professional recording, Evening Hymn (Gothic Records), is distributed internationally by Naxos and is available for purchase or streaming on all the major music distribution outlets including Amazon, Spotify, iTunes, etc. The American Record Guide review states “There are no runts in the repertory litter…[and] [t]he Georgia State choir of 40 is very good at all of it: radiant as dusk approaches, but hushed and sensitive to the coming darkness as shadows deepen and fall.” The disk has been featured several times on National Public Radio’s program, With Heart and Voice.

Dr. Joseph is an active guest conductor and headline clinician and has conducted all-state and honor choirs in more than twelve states. She is a frequent conductor of choral-orchestral repertoire and has led performances of Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Beethoven Mass in C, Mozart’s Requiem, Haydn’s Creation and Lord Nelson Mass, Schubert’s Mass in A-flat and Bruckner’s Mass in D Minor. She has prepared choirs to sing with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, the Atlanta Opera, and Andrea Bocelli. One of her small ensembles was featured on a 2016 episode of “The Walking Dead”.

Dr. Joseph’s research in the area of 19th-century choral-orchestral performance-practice has led to invited presentations on the topic at several division conferences of the American Choral Director’s Association and at the national convention for the National Collegiate Choral Organization. In October of 2012, she was selected as one of 25 presenters from ten countries to speak at the Lund Choral Festival in Sweden.

Prior to her appointment at Georgia State University, Dr. Joseph served on the faculties at Smith College, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and Hobart and William Smith Colleges. Dr. Joseph holds conducting degrees from the Eastman School of Music, where she was awarded the Walter Hagen Conducting Prize. She is the founder and artistic director of the Atlanta Summer Conducting Institute (ASCI), a weeklong, summer conducting master class that draws conductors from across the country.

Since coming to Reinhardt University in fall 2012, Dr. Martha Shaw has led the University’s choral programs to new heights of excellence, just as she did in her previous position at another Georgia university and in her role as artistic director of Spivey Hall Children’s Choir Program. This spring Dr. Shaw received the Reinhardt University United Methodist Exemplary Teaching Award. The award, voted on by her faculty colleagues throughout the University, goes to a faculty member who exemplifies excellence in teaching; civility and concern for students and colleagues; commitment to values-centered education; and, service to students, the institution and the community. A graduate of Shorter College (BME), University of Tennessee (MS) and the University of South Carolina (DMA in Conducting), Martha Shaw is a highly regarded clinician and guest conductor through the U.S. and around the world. Thank you, Dr. Shaw, for all you do to encourage and support your students, alumni, faculty colleagues and the entire Reinhardt University community.

Dr. Sandra Babb is assistant professor of choral music education at Oregon State University. She received her Bachelor of Music Education, Master of Music Education, and Ph.D. in music education from The Florida State University. She currently teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in the Professional Music Teacher Education Program and conducts Bella Voce, the premier women’s choir. Her research interests include choral tone development and best practices in pre-service music educator training. She has presented research and interest sessions at state and national conferences, including the National Association for Music Education, the American Choral Directors Association, the Texas Music Educators Association, and the New York State School Music Association. Dr. Babb has published articles in the International Journal of Research in Choral Singing and the Choral Journal, and she is a contributing author for the K-12 choral textbook series Voices in Concert.

Prior appointments include: the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College, CUNY in Queens, NY; the Gulf Coast Girl Choir in Tampa, Florida; and the Pasco County Public Schools in New Port Richey, Fla. Her choral ensembles have performed for the Florida, New York, and Southern Division conferences of the American Choral Directors Association. She is in frequent demand as a clinician and conductor for honor choirs throughout the United States.

Dr. Babb is an active member of the National Association for Music Education, the American Choral Directors Association and the College Music Society. She is the advisor for the OSU chapter of NAfME and has served as the Youth and Student Activities Repertoire & Standards Chair for NY-ACDA. She is a member of the National Music Honor Society, Pi Kappa Lambda, and was a recipient of the Mainstream Teacher of the Year Award by the Pasco County School District Council for Exceptional Student Education.

Conductor/music educator Dr. Barbara M. Tagg is a retired member of the music education faculty at Syracuse University (S.U.) where she was conductor of the S.U. Women’s Choir for twenty years, and Founder/Conductor Emerita of the Syracuse Children’s Chorus (SCC) in residence at the university for thirty years. She is author of BEFORE THE SINGING published by Oxford University Press, and continues to guest conduct, adjudicate, and consult.

Dr. Tagg was the first nationally elected ACDA Repertoire & Standards Chair serving two, four-year terms following her tenure as Chair of the ACDA National Committee on Children’s Choirs, a position she held for eight years. During her tenure as National R&S Chair she guest edited three focus issues of The Choral Journal devoted to children’s choirs, repertoire and standards, and American music respectively, and numerous articles. As a former ten-year board member of Chorus America she continues to serve on various committees and initiatives.

Throughout her career Dr. Tagg has guest conducted treble honors choirs, all state choirs, festivals, and presented workshops for universities and choral organizations throughout the United States, Canada, Hong Kong, and China. She has presented concerts, research papers, and workshops in Greece, Great Britain, Canada, Europe, Hong Kong, and China. She has prepared choirs for Kazuyoshi Akiyama, Dave Brubeck, Fabio Machetti, Daniel Hege, Doreen Rao, and the late Christopher Keene, Calvin Custer, and Gregg Smith. She prepared SCC for annual concerts with the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra for twenty-six years.

She has commissioned and/or premiered over ninety works for children’s and women’s choirs. With SCC she twice received the Chorus America/ASCAP Award for Adventuresome Programming. Distinguished composers in residence for premieres with her choirs have included Libby Larsen, Bob Chilcott, David Brunner, Francisco Núñez, Jim Papoulis, Nick Page, Shawn Crouch, Gerald Cohen, among others, and the late Stephen Paulus, Calvin Custer, Liu Zhuang, and Gregg Smith.

For many years she was artistic director of the Keynote Arts Associates Children in Harmony Festivals in Orlando, FL, and the Adirondack Children’s Chorus at the Adirondack Festival of American Music in Saranac Lake, NY. She has been honored by ACDA, Syracuse University, the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra, the Society for New Music, and DisneyWorld. She is a member of Pi Kappa Lambda, Sigma Alpha Iota, holds the Choral Music Experience Artist-Teacher Certificate, and is a currently a member of the Gregg Smith Singers board of directors and an honorary board member of the Ernst Bacon Foundation.

Dr. Kathy Bullock is an educator, scholar, singer, accompanist, arranger and choral conductor who specializes in gospel music, spirituals and classical works by composers from the African diaspora. A Professor Emerita of Music from Berea College, Berea, Kentucky, she currently teaches, performs, and conducts workshops and other programs on African American music throughout the United States, Europe, and Africa.

Dr. Bullock earned a Ph.D. and M.A. in Music Theory from Washington University in St. Louis, MO, and a B.A. in Music from Brandeis University, MA. At Berea College she taught Music Theory, African-American Music, World Music, and other courses in music and general studies. She also directed Berea’s Black Music Ensemble, a choral ensemble that specializes in African American sacred music, developing a small student-run ensemble into an accredited, diverse, and exciting course that averaged seventy students each semester. Additionally, Dr. Bullock designed and led new international study courses in Ghana, Zimbabwe, and Jamaica. In her role as administrator she actively participated in the college’s governance structure throughout her tenure; she was chair of the department, and member of primary governance committees. Dr. Bullock received many acknowledgements for her contributions to Berea College. In particular, she was awarded the highly coveted Seabury Award for teaching, and was later made an Honorary Alumni of the college. Although she has now retired from fulltime teaching, Dr. Bullock recently joined the faculty of the University of Kentucky, School of Music as an adjunct, teaching and providing master classes in African American music.

Dr. Bullock’s presentations include workshops on spirituals and gospel music and explorations of musical connections between African American culture and West African and Appalachian cultures. Other research areas include the Music of the Civil Rights Movement, and African American Women’s Contributions to the Women’s Suffrage Movement. Dr. Bullock teaches and performs at schools, universities, churches, community organizations, throughout the US, educational programs such as the Kentucky Humanities Council, and singing camps such as the Swananoaa singing camp in North Carolina and workshops in Findhorn Foundation in Forres, Scotland. Recently, Dr. Bullock was the first artist at the John C. Campbell Folk School to teach about Appalachian and African American Musical Connections. Other research projects include the completion of an edition of art songs by contemporary African-American composers.

In response to the 2020 pandemic Dr. Bullock created a series of inspirational videos online, performing songs of faith and hope. Indeed in all of her work, Dr. Bullock shares infectious joy and inspires heartfelt connections as she celebrates the transcending power of love and spirit through music.

Dr. Melissa Morgan is the Assistant Professor of Choral Music in the department of Media, Arts, and Performance at the University of Regina. Her responsibilities include conducting the auditioned, Chamber Singers, and the non-auditioned Concert Choir in addition to teaching courses in vocal diction and choral conducting. An active conductor, she is frequently asked to serve as a clinician, adjudicator, and guest conductor with high school, children’s choirs, and church choirs throughout Canada. Previous to her appointment at the University of Regina, Dr. Morgan was the Pfeifer Memorial Chair of Music at Luther College High School and the founder and artistic director of the former community ensemble, Prairie Chamber Choir.

As a researcher and scholar, Dr. Morgan has contributed articles to Teaching Music through Performance in Choir, Vol. 5. She is also published in the Canadian Music Educators Journal, and the American Choral Directors Association monthly publication, Choral Journal. She has done significant work to promote choral art music by Prairie composers. Her recording, Wake the Grain: Choral Art Music from the Prairies, which was created to celebrate and honour composers from the Prairie region with a hope to encourage and support new Canadian music, can be found on Spotify and Apple Music.

In October 2017, Dr. Morgan was named as one of CBC Saskatchewan's Future 40 under 40 recipients. Her choirs have won numerous awards including, receiving second place in the Choral Canada National Competition for Amateur Choirs, chamber choir category. On several occasions, she has prepared choirs to perform with the Regina Symphony Orchestra. In addition, her choirs have received invitations to perform on the stage of Lincoln Centre, and at events including, the Association of Canadian Choral Communities, Podium Conferences, and several provincial and national music festivals and ceremonies.

Originally, from Regina, Saskatchewan, Dr. Morgan holds a Doctorate of Music Performance in Choral Conducting from the University of Toronto, a Master of Music Performance in Choral Conducting from the University of Western Ontario, a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Music Education from the University of Regina. She is also an Associate of the Toronto Royal Conservatory of Music (ARCT) in piano, voice, and flute.

Conductor-teacher Dr. Kristina Caswell MacMullen has devoted her career to sharing music and inspiration with students and audiences. Her collaborations with fellow musicians continue to confirm her abiding hope for the future and an unflagging belief in the power of choral music.

Currently, MacMullen serves as an Associate Professor of Choral Conducting at the University of North Texas where she conducts the University Singers, Kalandra, and instructs both undergraduate and graduate students in conducting and rehearsal pedagogy. Prior to her appointment at UNT, Kristina spent eight years on the faculty of The Ohio State University. While at OSU, her interdisciplinary work earned her the Sir William Osler Award for Humanism in Medicine.

MacMullen believes that great potential lies in choral performance and creative communication. She strives to guide her students, as they desire to impact the world they will inherit for the better. Creative projects include interdisciplinary performances addressing human trafficking, the Kubler-Ross stages of grief, play theory, Maslow's hierarchy of needs, female archetype exploration, American song, civic engagement, and the nature of tears.

As an active adjudicator and clinician, MacMullen has conducted All-State and honors choirs throughout the United States. She has presented and co-presented interest sessions at state, regional, national and international conferences. Recent and upcoming engagements involve students in New Mexico, Michigan, South Carolina, Kansas, Montana, North Dakota, and Texas. Her teaching and conducting is featured on the DVD Conducting-Teaching: Real World Strategies for Success published by GIA (2009). Her editions for treble choir are published by Boosey & Hawkes, Musicatus Press, and MusicSpoke.

MacMullen earned both the Bachelor of Music Education and Master of Music degrees from Michigan State University. She completed the Doctor of Musical Arts degree at Texas Tech University. Kristina has enjoyed a diverse career as a public-school teacher, interacting with students in rural, suburban, and urban settings, elementary through high school. She also sings with the professional ensemble Mirabai.

Australian born conductor Dr. Heather J. Buchanan is Associate Professor of Music and Director of Choral Activities at Montclair State University, New Jersey, USA, where she conducts the 160-voice Chorale, 60-voice University Singers, and 24-voice Vocal Accord. Choirs under her direction have won critical acclaim for their “heartfelt conviction,” “new-minted enthusiasm and vibrancy,” being a “marvel of diction, tuning and rhythm”, “impeccable dynamics and diction,” “vibrant sound,” and for singing with the “crispness and dexterity of a professional choir.” Over the last decade the Montclair State choral program has developed an enviable reputation for artistic excellence and creative programming in the US and Europe. Dr. Buchanan’s choirs have collaborated with a variety of renowned artists and composers including Meredith Monk, Mícheál ÓSúílleabháin, Joseph Flummerfelt, the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory Choir, the Studiochor of the Universität für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Graz, Austria, and composers Tarik O’Regan, Robert Livingston Aldridge, Chen Yi, Sarah Hopkins and Martin Sedek. The MSU Chorale’s masterwork performances with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra include Verdi Requiem, Orff’s Carmina Burana, Mahler Symphony No. 3; Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, and Howard Shore’s Academy Award winning score The Lord of the Rings Symphony under the batons of Neeme Järvi, Jacques LaCombe, and John Maucceri. The University Singers recorded Songs of Ascension with Meredith Monk and Vocal Ensemble on the prestigious ECM label under legendary producer Manfried Eicher, released May 2011. This collaboration was included in the Producer of the Year section of the 2012 Grammy nominations.

Dr. Buchanan holds degrees from the Queensland Conservatorium of Music, Griffith University (Australia), Westminster Choir College of Rider University (USA), and a PhD from the University of New England (Australia). A licensed Andover Educator, she specializes in the teaching of Body Mapping and somatic pedagogy for musicians. Her guest conducting highlights include the 2007 Dvorák Festival in Prague and Vienna, the World Premiere performance of Madison’s Descent, preparing the opera chorus for the regional premier of Elmer Gantry, and the US premiere of a new production of A Ceremony of Carols with famed British choreographer Richard Alston and his dance company in December 2012 for Benjamin Britten’s centennial. Dr. Buchanan’s publications include co-editing the landmark GIA choral series Teaching Music through Performance in Choir, the DVD Evoking Sound: Body Mapping & Gesture Fundamentals, and octavos in the Evoking Sound Choral Series (GIA). A vibrant teacher, dynamic performer, and passionate musicians’ health advocate, Dr. Buchanan is in demand as a guest conductor, somatic educator, and choral clinician in the US and abroad. She resides in Princeton Junction, New Jersey with her husband Peter and daughter Paige.

Dr. Jessica Nápoles is an Associate Professor of Choral Music Education at the University of North Texas. She teaches undergraduate coursework in choral methods, conducts the Concert Choir, and mentors graduate students in research. Dr. Nápoles served as Interim division chair for Conducting & Ensembles in 2019-2020 and Interim division chair for Music Education in Fall of 2020. A native of Florida with a Cuban-American background, Dr. Nápoles taught middle school chorus in the public schools of Miami and Orlando, FL. She received her Bachelor of Music Education, Master of Music Education, and PhD in Music Education from the Florida State University. Prior to her appointment at UNT, she taught at the University of Utah for 11 years.

Dr. Nápoles is an active conductor, clinician, and adjudicator, frequently engaging in guest conducting opportunities locally, regionally, and nationally. She has conducted All State and honor choirs in Arkansas, California, Delaware, Florida, Idaho, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Wisconsin, and Utah. She has conducted the Southern, North Central/Central, and Western division honor choirs for the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA). In 2019, Dr. Nápoles made her Carnegie Hall debut as choral conductor for the WorldStrides OnStage Honors Performance Series. She was asked to return in 2020 and again in 2021.

In addition to her conducting invitations, Dr. Nápoles is a well known researcher, with numerous publications in journals such as the Journal of Research in Music Education, Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education, Journal of Music Teacher Education, Update: Applications of Research in Music Education, and the International Journal of Music Education. She is currently serving 6-year terms on the editorial boards of the Journal of Research in Music Education, the premier research journal in music education and the International Journal of Research in Choral Singing, the ACDA research journal. Her research interests include music teacher education, testing practitioner practices empirically, expressive conducting, and teacher talk. She has presented at conferences on these topics nationally and internationally.

Dr. Nápoles is meaningfully engaged with the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA) at the national level. She is currently a member of the Research Standing Committee. Additionally, she served as Assistant Conference Chair for the 2019 Kansas City Conference and previously as the Honor Choir Coordinator for the 2015 conference in Salt Lake City and the 2017 conference in Minneapolis. For the 2021 conference, she has again been asked to serve as Assistant Conference Chair. In Spring of 2021, Dr. Nápoles led the writing team in drafting a COVID-19 task force for ACDA.

Publications

• Nápoles, J., & MacLeod, R. B. (2020). Clifford K. Madsen Contributions to Music Education and Music Therapy. Love of Learning. Routledge.

• Nápoles, J. (2020). Teacher Talk. In The Choral Conductor’s Companion (Ed. Brian Winnie). GIA Publications.

• Springer, D. G., Silvey, B. A., Nápoles, J., & Warnet, V. (2021).-Effects of tonic drone accompaniments on the intonation of collegiate wind instrumentalists. Journal of Research in Music Education, doi: 10.1177/0022429420974389. Advance online publication.

• Nápoles, J., Silvey, B. A., & Montemayor, M. (2020). The influences of facial expression and conducting gesture on college musicians’ perceptions of choral conductor and ensemble expressivity. International Journal of Music Education, https://doi.org/10.1177/0255761420926665. Advance online publication.

• Nápoles, J., & Silveira, J. M. (2020). Preservice and in-service teachers’ perceptions of pacing. Journal of Music Teacher Education, 29(2), 64-77. https://doi.org/10.1177/1057083719882702

• Nápoles, J., Springer, D. G., & Silvey, B. A., & Adams, K. (2019).-Effects of pitch source on pitch-matching and intonation accuracy of collegiate singers. Journal of Research in Music Education, 67 3), 270-285. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022429419863034

• Silvey, B. A., Nápoles, J., & Springer, D. G. (2019). Effects of pre-tuning vocalization behaviors on the tuning accuracy of college instrumentalists. Journal of Research in Music Education, 66(4), 392-407. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022429418806304

Guest appearances

• Guest Conductor, World Strides Honors Performance Series National Honor Choir, Carnegie Hall

• Guest Conductor, North Central/Central TTBB ACDA Honor Choir (2020)

• Guest Conductor, Maine All State Chorus (2018, 2019)

Other appearances

• Conference Headliner, Wyoming Music Educators Association (2021)

• Invited Scholar in Residence, Louisiana State University (2020)

• Conference Headliner, Missouri Choral Directors Association (2019)

Dr. A. Jan Taylor, educator, pianist, singer and choral conductor, is Director of Choral Music Activities at Prairie View A&M University. A native of Houston, Texas, she received the Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Houston, the Master of Arts degree from Prairie View A&M University, and the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Choral Conducting at the University of Houston.

Prior to her appointment at Prairie View, Taylor taught general music, piano, and trained choirs in elementary, middle, and high schools in the Houston Independent School District. She has served as adjudicator and choral clinician for numerous choral competitions, festivals, and regional choirs across the state of Texas. As an authority on the African-American spiritual, Taylor frequently lectures on the performance practices and preservation of the genre.

She is the founding director of Intermezzo, a professional vocal chamber ensemble, and has traveled throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia as a singer with such premier professional choral ensembles as the Houston Chamber Choir and the Houston Chorale. As Assistant Conductor of the Houston Symphony Chorus from 2003 until 2006, she assisted in preparing the chorus for world-class conductors in performances of such choral-orchestral works as Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem, Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis, the Verdi Requiem and Leonard Bernstein’s Kaddish Symphony. She has prepared choruses and collaborated with such renowned conductors and composers as Barbara Baker, Roland Carter, Nathan Carter, Moses Hogan, and Adolphus Hailstork. For the Houston Ebony Opera Guild, she coaches and accompanies singers, and conducts the Guild’s Chorus in performances of spirituals, African-American concert music, and operatic works. Dr. Taylor has conducted the “105 Voices of History” HBCU National Choir in performances at the Grand Ole Opry House in Nashville, TN, the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium, and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.

Under Dr. Taylor’s direction, the Prairie View A&M University Concert Chorale and PV Chamber Singers have performed to critical acclaim throughout the United States and abroad, including performances at the Texas Music Educators Association convention, and the International Festival Wratislavia Cantans, a prestigious music festival for choirs and orchestras in Poland. Her choirs have performed with the Houston Symphony, the Acadian Symphony, and have collaborated with several professional and community choruses in the Greater Houston area.

Taylor is a member of the Board of Directors of the Bay Area Chorus, and holds memberships in the Texas Music Educators Association, American Choral Directors Association, Texas Choral Directors Association, and Sigma Alpha Iota, a music fraternity for women.

Sunday March 14-Krista Overby (born Krista Bridges, June 17, 1980) is an American gospel artist. Her singing career launched around the tender age of 6 in following her dad, Pastor Leander Bridges to many revivals. She comes from a long line of talented singers dating back to her grandfather, Arthur Ray Bridges, who was a member of a legendary Mississippi gospel group consisting of 5 brothers, The 5 Gospel Singers. She and her 2 brothers are all gifted musicians. Her melodious sound was unleashed and became even more refined as she studied voice as a high school junior under the instruction of Mrs. Wanda Saul. She was one of the few who believed in Krista's ability and has continued to support her over the years. She also studied under the great composer and conductor, Dr. Raymond Wise. Krista holds degrees in Music Education from Jones County Junior College, and a BA in vocal performance from the University of Southern MS where she continues to perform in musical stage productions. Her versatile style ranges from her favorite, which is praise and worship; to hymns, traditional and contemporary gospel, and even opera.

In her professional career, Krista is an experienced choral director, pianist and vocal coach. She has accompanied her brother, Leander Bridges, II to Carnegie Hall with the award-winning Laurel High School gospel choir for 2 consecutive years in 2013 and 2014. She formerly served as the school district’s choral instructor. Under her direction, this choir did its first live recording in May, 2016. Krista conducts church choir workshops and voice lessons. 2011 was a groundbreaking year with the debut release of her self-composed project, For His Glory, one of her greatest accomplishments. Also in that year, she accompanied Dr. Wise abroad to Czech Republic for the Prague Gospel Showcase where she sang a stellar rendition of Hallowed Be Thy Name and received a standing ovation and encore presentation. Krista and her family frequently travel to Trinidad on mission trips where she continues to break barriers worldwide for the Kingdom of God.

In 2014, her passion and purpose took her to Ithaca, NY twice where she performed the nostalgic gospel of 12 Gates in the City livestream at Ithaca College collaborating with conductor, Stan Spottswood and the Ithaca College choir and orchestra. In 2016, she released her 2nd project entitled God Is Real, dedicated to her grandmother, and with the bonus track, The Grace of God. She has opened for gospel artists such as Jekalyn Carr and William Murphy, III, Paul Porter, Shirley Caesar, Beverly Crawford, Vanessa Bell-Armstrong, Yolanda Adams, JJ Hairston, Rance Allen, Paul Morton, Jonathan Nelson, Marvin Sapp, and Tamela Mann just to name a few.

Krista expounded upon her career as a soloist in the Mississippi Bicentennial Celebration filmed and broadcast on the MS Public Broadcast Channel. She appeared in the Motown Revue, Elvis Revue, and Christmas Cabaret with the Natchez Music Festival, In February 2018, Krista appeared in the gospel stage play, Church Hurts at the Historical Saenger Theater in Hattiesburg, MS, and the lead role in the stage play, I Hate My In-laws, as well as the lead role in the gospel stage play Well Worth the Wait. Most importantly, she humbly serves wholeheartedly at her church, Springhill M.B. Church, Ellisville, MS where she is the Music Director/Worship Leader and has been for twenty years. Krista McKenzie continues to shine her light in every arena and in any capacity. As a devoted mother to her 3 children, it is imperative that she makes a positive impact by being a true vessel and a great role model to her family as well as the generation of millennials who greatly admire her. She is recently married to the man of her dreams and is currently completing her master’s degree in marriage and family therapy.

The UMKC Conservatory is pleased to welcome Dr. Jennaya Robison as Raymond R. Neevel/Missouri Professor in Choral Music and Director of Choral Studies, Fall 2020. Dr. Robison joins UMKC as one of the leading choral directors in North America, and is consistently in demand as a clinician both nationally and internationally. She has presented at ACDA and NATS conferences and is a national leader of choral artistry, pedagogy, and innovation. She has held previous positions at Luther College, the University of Arizona, and the University of New Mexico, as well as at community orchestras in Tucson and Phoenix, Arizona. As a public-school educator, she has taught in Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minnesota and has an active performance career as a soprano soloist and chorister.

As a soprano, she has sung as a soloist with the Grammy award-winning True Concord, Tucson Symphony, Arizona Opera, Scottsdale Arts Orchestra, Scottsdale Symphony, St. Andrews Bach Society, Phoenix Youth Symphony, Tucson Masterworks Chorale, Rochester Choral Arts, Chamber Orchestra of Albuquerque. As a chorister, she has sung as a member of the Arizona Choir under the direction of Bruce Chamberlain, Las Cantantes under the direction of Bradley Ellingboe, the Dale Warland Singers in Minneapolis, Minnesota under the direction of Dale Warland, and in the Nordic Choir of Luther College under the direction of Weston Noble.

She is in demand as a conductor, clinician, and soprano throughout the United States. She holds the Doctor of Musical Arts in Choral Conducting from the University of Arizona, the Master of Music in conducting and voice from the University of New Mexico, and the Bachelor of Arts in music from Luther College. She is currently the coordinator of Collegiate Repertoire and Standards and director of Student Activities for the North Central chapter of the American Choral Directors Association. Her choral series is published with Pavane Music.

Giselle Wyers is the Donald E. Petersen Endowed Professor of Choral Music at the University of Washington, where she conducts the award-winning University Chorale and teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in choral conducting and music education. University Chorale’s latest CD, Resonant Streams (on the MSR Music Recordings label) received recognition by Gramophone magazine last spring. Her semi-professional chorus, Solaris Vocal Ensemble, specializes in the performance of contemporary American choral literature. Their premiere album Floodsongs on the Albany Music label, won the American Prize Ernst Bacon Memorial Award for the Performance of American Music in 2017-18. As a guest conductor, Wyers has led high school honor choirs and all-state choruses in New York (Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center), Georgia, Missouri, Louisiana, Connecticut, Nebraska, Texas, Washington, Alaska, Idaho, and Vancouver, Canada. She has conducted semi-professional ensembles across the United States and in Germany, the Netherlands, Estonia, and Sweden. Wyers is in demand for Zoom lectures during the pandemic with Res Diversa Chamber Choir (Chile), Western Washington University (a three-week composition crash course), University of Iowa, Northern Illinois University, Montana State University, and with the Mastersingers of Milwaukee (Wisconsin). Her appearance with Kansas and Nevada All-States will take place during the 2020-21 academic year.

Wyers is a leading national figure in the application of Laban movement theory for conductors. She has served as guest lecturer in conducting at Sweden’s Örebro Universitet, European Festival of Church Music (Germany), Latvian Academy of Music, Eastman School of Music, Ithaca College, Westminster Choir College, University of Iowa, Hobart and William Smith Colleges and Portland State University. Wyers’ choral works are published by Santa Barbara Music Publishing Company as part of the "Giselle Wyers Choral Series," and have been performed across the United States, South America, Canada, Australia, Cuba, and numerous European cities. Her latest premiere was a 30-minute choral cycle entitled And All Shall Be Well, commissioned by the Vashon Island Chorale. In 2020, four new choral works will premiere across the United States. She is also committed to mentoring scholar-writers in the field, and serves on the editorial board of ACDA’s Choral Journal.

March 15-Dr. Elizabeth Schauer (she/her/hers), Director of Choral Activities, has served on the University of Arizona faculty since 2004. An award-winning educator, Dr. Schauer directs Symphonic Choir and Arizona Choir, and teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in conducting, literature and methods. She is in demand as an adjudicator, clinician, presenter and conductor throughout the United States, including for performances at Carnegie Hall and with all-state choirs including Maine, Connecticut, New Mexico and Georgia.

Choirs under her direction have been selected by audition and invited to perform on local, state and regional conferences of American Choral Directors Association (ACDA), National Association for Music Education (NAfME), College Music Society (CMS) and American Guild of Organists. In addition, her choirs have been featured on the ACDA National YouTube Channel and the Community Concerts Series of KUAT-FM Classical Radio, and are regularly invited to collaborate, notably with the Tucson Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, Arizona Symphony and the UA Wind Ensemble. Repertoire embraces choral and choral-orchestral works from the Middle Ages through the present, up to and including new works dedicated to and commissioned for her ensembles, as well as the music of our time and from a variety of cultures.

She has presented sessions at the national conferences of ACDA, Presbyterian Association of Musicians and CMS; regional conferences of ACDA, and state conferences of ACDA and NAfME. Former students are active as music educators at public and private schools, churches, colleges and universities throughout the country, and have been accepted into respected graduate schools and programs for continued study. Dr. Schauer holds degrees from University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, Westminster Choir College and University of Michigan.

Dr. Elizabeth Swanson is the Associate Director of Choral Studies at the University of Colorado Boulder. She is honored to serve as the conductor of the University Choir, which was founded in 1938 by Warner Imig. A passionate educator, Swanson also teaches courses in conducting at the undergraduate level, applied lessons in conducting at the graduate level, and serves on master’s and doctoral committees.

Swanson maintains an active schedule as guest conductor, clinician, and adjudicator throughout the United States with most recent appearances as the conductor of the inaugural Montana State University Women’s Vocal Festival in Bozeman, MT as well as festivals and honor choirs in the Denver-area. Her conducting students have reached the final round in ACDA student conducting competitions and have been hired at leading universities upon graduation.

Nationally, Swanson is on the Executive Board of the National Collegiate Choral Organization as Acting Chief Editor of Publications. In this capacity, she edits NCCO’s peer-reviewed journal, The Choral Scholar, and curates NCCO’s highly selective choral music publication, the NCCO Choral Series, which is distributed by the ECS Publishing Group. Swanson previously served on NCCO’s Executive Board as Secretary and as an associate editor of The Choral Scholar.

Prior to her appointment at CU Boulder, Swanson lived in New York City and was the Director of Choirs at Nyack College School of Music in lower Manhattan. Under her direction, the Nyack College Chorale performed in renowned venues such as David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center, the Cathedral of St. John the Divine and St. Paul’s Chapel at Trinity Church Wall Street, and toured domestically. While in New York City, Swanson also served as an arts administrator at Manhattan Concert Productions, a New York City-based company that produces concerts at venues such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center and The Apollo.

A noted mezzo-soprano, Swanson sang professionally for four seasons with New York City-based professional choir Manhattan Chorale, an ensemble for which she was also the manager for three seasons. As a member of Chorale Le Chateau, Swanson took part in a collaboration with Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra in a performance of Marsalis’s Abyssinian Mass, conducted by Damien Sneed. Swanson has also been a member of the Chicago Symphony Chorus and Grant Park Chorus.

Swanson has also been a member of the conducting faculty at The University of Chicago, North Park University, and Ithaca College and has served as a conductor of choral ensembles at Northwestern University and Roosevelt University (Chicago College of Performing Arts). Swanson has been published in the Choral Journal. Her dissertation was a qualitative analysis of August 4, 1964, an oratorio by the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Steven Stucky, with the libretto by Gene Scheer.

Swanson earned degrees from Northwestern University (DM Conducting), Ithaca College (MM Conducting), and St. Olaf College (BM Vocal Education).

Dr. Wendy K. Moy is a dual assistant professor of music education in the College of Visual and Performing Arts and the School of Education at Syracuse University. Moy teaches undergraduate and graduate coursework in music education, conducting, rehearsal techniques, choral literature, and directs the Crouse Chorale in the Setnor School of Music.

Prior to joining Syracuse University, Moy was an associate professor of music at Connecticut College from 2013-2020, where she was the director of choral activities and head of music education. From 2012-2013, she was an instructor at Tacoma Community College, serving as the director of choral activities and teaching courses in music education. Before moving to the East Coast, Moy conducted the University of Washington Women’s Chorus and the Seattle Pacific University Chamber Singers. She also taught orchestra, choir, and jazz choir at the secondary level in the Edmonds School District from 1999-2010. Her ensembles were invited to perform at the Northwest Music Educator and Washington Music Educator Association Conferences.

Moy is the co-founder and co-artistic director of the professional chamber ensemble, Chorosynthesis Singers. They recently released on the Centaur Records label Empowering Silenced Voices, a 2-CD collection of new music on themes of social consciousness and established the Empowering Silenced Voices Database for Socially Conscious Choral Music. Chorosynthesis Singers was selected to be in residence as Choral Scholars at Santa Monica College and as Dayton Artists-in-Residence at Connecticut College. A strong advocate for collaboration and new music, Moy has premiered/commissioned numerous new works by established and emerging composers. She also sings soprano in Chorosynthesis Singers and CONCORA. Moy has also served as the director of the Eastern Connecticut Symphony Chorus and the artistic director of the Hartford Gay Men’s Chorus. A violinist since age four, she was a violin coach, chamber music coordinator, and assistant conductor with the Cascade Youth Symphony Organization. Moy studied orchestral conducting with Eric Hanson and Nikolas Caoile with additional coaching by Kenneth Kiesler. She recently made her conducting debut with the Eastern Connecticut Symphony Orchestra and Chorus.

Moy is a frequent clinician and guest conductor with ensembles of all levels. Passionate about mentoring and inspiring young musicians, she has conducted the Rhode Island All-State Senior High School Chorus, Connecticut Eastern Region High School Honor Choir, Heartland High School Honor Choir, Northshore Junior High Honor Orchestra, and Edmonds Elementary Honor Choir. In June 2017, she served as assistant conductor for a performance of Tyler’s Suite at Lincoln Center. Selected as an American Choral Directors Association (ACDA) International Conducting Fellow, Moy made her international conducting debut with the Coral da Universidade Federal da Gazzi de Sá at the Festival Paraibano de Coros in João Pessoa, Brazil. She soon followed this with her Asia conducting debut in Shenzhen, China.

Moy's research focuses on the culture of singing communities and the cultivation of social capital in successful choral organizations. She has presented her ethnographic research on the Seattle Men's Chorus, the largest gay men's chorus in the world and the largest community chorus in North America, at conferences sponsored by the ACDA; College Music Society; GALA Choruses; National Association for Music Education (NAfME); and Society for Education, Music and Psychology Research. Oxford University Press will soon publish her study in Together in Music: Participation, Co-Ordination, and Creativity in Ensembles. Moy has also presented on fostering equity, diversity, and culture in the choral rehearsal and performance through the music of social consciousness at the Chorus America and the National Collegiate Choral Organization Conferences. She writes for the NAfME Music in a Minuet blog and has been interviewed for featured articles in The Choral Journal, The Voice of Chorus America, and Teaching Music Journal on the subjects of entrepreneurship and culture-building in the choral arts.

Moy's honors include being selected to participate in the National Endowment for the Humanities Bach Institute in Germany, the Westminster Chamber Choir with Joe Miller, the Tallis Scholar Summer School with Peter Phillips, the Carnegie Hall Choral Institute/Transient Glory Symposium as a conducting associate with Francisco Nuñez, and the Yale/Norfolk Chamber Choir under the direction of Simon Carrington. She was named the 3rd place winner of The American Prize in Choral Conducting, professional division in 2017. Under her co-direction, Chorosynthesis Singers was named the 2nd place winner of The American Prize in Choral Performance, professional division with a special citation for Extraordinary Commitment to New Music in 2018.

Moy is the vice president/co-founder of Chorosynthesis, a national nonprofit organization whose mission is to transform the culture of American choral music through collaboration, sustainability, innovation, and excellence. She serves on the ACDA Standing Committee on International Activities and evaluates grants for the National Endowment for the Arts and Chorus America. Moy holds a bachelor of arts in music education (vocal/choral and instrumental emphasis) from Seattle Pacific University, a master of music education from Westminster Choir College, and a doctor of musical arts in choral conducting (music education cognate) from the University of Washington.

Judith Willoughby is the former Artistic Director of Canterbury (OKC) Youth Voices (CYV) and the Wanda L. Bass Professor of Conducting and Choral Music Education at the Wanda L. Bass School of Music at Oklahoma City University. As a guest conductor, conference headliner and clinician, Willoughby worked with youth, collegiate, adult choruses and orchestras throughout the USA, as well as in the world’s major concert halls in the United States, Canada, eastern and western Europe, the Caribbean, Australia, Russia, China, Hong Kong and the Universidad Pontifica Javeriana in Bogota, Columbia. She was an active honor choir conductor for the American Choral Directors Association, conducting honor choruses for national, divisional and numerous state conventions, presented concerts and taught at leading universities and conservatories in the United States including Yale University, Eastman School of Music’s Summer Institute, Westminster Choir College, and has prepared youth and adult choruses for performances with renowned maestros Eugene Ormandy, Ricardo Muti, and in Oklahoma, her colleague Dr. Randi Von Ellefson and maestro Joel Levine. As a choral music educator, Willoughby’s career began in the Philadelphia public schools. Her concert work with children and youth commenced when she founded and developed the Temple University Children’s Choir in Temple University’s Center for Gifted Young Musicians, leading that chorus to international prominence, notably, at the Oregon Bach Festival under the baton of Helmut Rilling and five tours to Puerto Rico. Prior to her appointments in Oklahoma City, Professor Willoughby was a tenured faculty member at Northwestern University (IL). Her interest in public policy’s intersection with arts education and performance resulted in service on many panels for the National Endowment for the Arts and its partner agencies, as well as national foundations in the private sector, regional and state arts agencies. Willoughby served on the board of Chorus America for nine years, including two terms as secretary and was active on that organization’s conducting taskforce. She is a National Arts Associate of the Alpha Zeta chapter of Sigma Alpha Iota, served on the Music Advisory Board for the Arts Institute at Quartz Mountain, and has been honored by Pennsylvania’s chapter of the American Choral Directors Association, during it fiftieth anniversary celebration, for her past service as president of Pennsylvania ACDA. Willoughby has been an editor for a choral series published by Alliance Music, has contributed to articles published in ACDA’s Choral Journal and the Chorister, wrote a chapter for the Choral Director’s Cookbook published by Meredith Music and was on the editorial board for two Chorus America publications: Leading the Successful Chorus and Conductors Count: What Chorus Boards, Music Directors and Administrators Need to Know. She authored a chapter in Way Over in Beulah Lan’: Understanding and Performing the Negro Spiritual by Dr. Andre Thomas, published by Heritage Music Press. Professor Willoughby, along with Dr. Andre Thomas, is the subject of a published book, written by Gerald Knight, “Two African-American Choral Conductors: Eroding Misconceptions Through Excellence”. Professor Willoughby earned degrees from Northwestern and Temple Universities, studying music education and piano with Gui Mombaerts, graduate studies at Temple University with Natalie Hinderas, choral conducting with Elaine Brown and instrumental conducting with Max Rudolph. Now retired, Professor Willoughby lives in Maryland, close to her daughter and her sister. Her legacy continues through the students she trained so well at OCU and they now lead the Canterbury Youth Voices program that she grew into the premier children’s chorus in Oklahoma City.

Dr. Meredith Bowen is the Director of Choral Activities at Radford University in Radford, VA, where she conducts three ensembles and teaches undergraduate and graduate classes in choral conducting, vocal pedagogy, choral methods, choral literature, and supervises student teachers. She serves as R & R Chair for Youth and Student Activities and was recently voted president-elect for Virginia ACDA. She is an inaugural singer of and Artistic Administrator for mirabai, a professional women’s ensemble, and is on faculty for the Choral Music Experience Institute and the Virginia Governor’s School for the Visual and Performing Arts and Humanities.

Bowen is an active guest conductor, clinician, and presenter. Her recent conducting invitations include all-state honor choirs in Michigan, Virginia, and Kansas; and honor choirs in Alaska, Alabama, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia. She was one of six conductors selected to represent the United States by the 2018 American Choral Directors Association International Exchange Program in Nairobi, Kenya. She is slated to co-conduct an honor treble ensemble at Carnegie Hall with National Concerts. Bowen’s two current scholarship interests are restoring, publishing, and performing music written by 17th-century women and the impact of socially-conscious programming. She presented her research on restoring convent music at the National American Choral Directors Association Conference and contributed an article on the same subject in the Choral Journal. Four of her restored editions are published by Boosey & Hawkes and two editions appear on the mirabai ‘s inaugural recording, “ecstatic songs.”

Previous to her appointment at Radford, Bowen taught K-12 general music, choir, and band in Lansing, MI, and was the Artistic Director of multiple ensembles in Michigan including: Sistrum - Lansing Women’s Chorus, Holland Chorale, and the Battle Creek Girls Chorus. Bowen holds a B.S. in Music Education from West Chester University, an M.M. and a D.M.A. in Choral Conducting from Michigan State University.

A native of Fayetteville, NC, Dr. Connie McKoy is Marion Stedman Covington Distinguished Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies in the UNCG School of Music, where she teaches undergraduate and graduate music education courses. She holds a BM in Music Education from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and MM and PhD degrees from UNCG. She has 19 years of public-school teaching experience as a general music teacher, choral director, and band assistant.

Her research, which has been presented nationally and internationally, has focused on music teachers’ cross-cultural competence, and culturally responsive pedagogy in music. Her work has been published in The Journal of Research in Music Education, The Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education, Update: Applications of Research in Music Education, Music Education Research, The Journal of Music Teacher Education, and the International Journal of Music Education. She has served previously on the editorial review committees of the NAfME publications The Music Educators Journal and Update: Applications of Research in Music Education and currently, Qualitative Research in Music Education. In 2017 and 2019, she was an invited participated in the Yale Symposium on Music in Schools and contributed to the 2017 document, The Declaration on Equity in Music for City Students. Dr. McKoy is co-author of Culturally Responsive Teaching in Music Education: From Understanding to Application, published by Routledge.

She is an active clinician for state, regional, and national music education organizations, is certified in Level III of Orff Schulwerk pedagogy and has taught recorder for Levels I-III. She is a past president of the North Carolina Music Educators Association, and past chair of the Society for Music Teacher Education, an affiliated society of the National Association for Music Education.

Since 1989, Dr. Jo Ann Miller has been director of choral activities at North Dakota State University where she conducts the Concert Choir and teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in conducting and choral literature.

Her involvement in the American Choral Director’s Association includes North Dakota state president, newsletter editor, repertoire and standards chair for the university level, audition chair for the 2006 North Central convention, program chair for the 2008 North Central convention and search committee member for the national executive director. She served as North Central division president from 2006 through 2008 and is currently the national treasurer and member of the Executive Board from 2009-2017.

As director of choral activities at NDSU, her choirs tour regularly overseas and throughout the United States. The Concert Choir has been invited to perform at national, regional and state music conventions, including the 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, and 2016.North Central American Choral Directors Association conventions and the 2001 national ACDA convention in San Antonio, Texas.

Dr. Miller is the artistic director of the NDSU Baroque Festival and the chorus master of the Fargo Moorhead Symphony Orchestra. She was named a University Distinguished Professor in 2009, the highest honor awarded to faculty at NDSU, and in 2013 was awarded the Faculty Lectureship. She earned her degrees from NDSU, the University of North Dakota, and the University of Cincinnati, College Conservatory of Music.

She is an active clinician and guest conductor throughout the United States.

The NDSU Concert Choir tours regionally during spring break every year and internationally every three years. In 2012 they were awarded the first prize Golden Cross at the Zadar, Croatia International Choir Competition. They also record annually with more than 30 compact discs. Since 2000 the Concert Choir has participated in the NDSU Baroque Festival with annual performances of Handel’s Messiah. D.M.A., Univ. of Cincinnati, College Conservatory of Music, M.Ed., University of North Dakota B.S., North Dakota State University.

March 17-Dr. Jennifer Sengin is the Associate Director of Choral Activities at Georgia State University where she conducts the Women’s Chorus and Choral Union and teaches graduate choral literature, graduate and undergraduate conducting, undergraduate choral methods, and supervises student teachers. Under her direction, the Women’s Chorus recently performed at the Georgia Music Educators Association Conference in January, 2020. Dr. Sengin is very passionate about recruiting. In collaboration with the Director of Choral Activities, she has worked to increase enrollment in the choral program at GSU. Dr. Sengin was named a semi-finalist for The American Prize in Conducting–college/university division in February, 2021.

An active guest conductor, clinician, adjudicator, and presenter, Dr. Sengin has conducted honor choirs in Georgia, Florida, New Jersey, Michigan, and New York, and presented sessions with the Dublin Youth Choir Singers (Ireland), NAFME Eastern Division Conference, ACDA Central/North Central Division Conference, Georgia Music Educators Conference, Florida Music Educators Conference, and at the Virtual mirabai Women’s Leadership Retreat among others. Dr. Sengin frequently provides presentations on recruiting and retaining singers, score study and rehearsal strategies, movement as a rehearsal strategy, and building community in the choral rehearsal in both virtual and in-person settings.

Dr. Sengin currently serves on the National Board of the National Collegiate Choral Organization, the R&R Chair for Youth and Student Activities on the GA-ACDA Board and as Faculty/Administrator of the Choral Music Experience for Choral Teacher Education course at Michigan State University, and has taught additional courses at Michigan State and Central Connecticut State Universities. She has published and contributed to articles in the Choral Journal and Tempo Magazine, and currently sings in The American Prize-winning ensemble, mirabai, under the direction of Sandra Snow.

Dr. Sengin earned her doctorate at Michigan State University, where she studied with Drs. David Rayl, Sandra Snow, and Jonathan Reed. At Michigan State, Dr. Sengin directed the Women’s Glee Club and led several large-scale recruitment events. She earned a Master’s degree from Ithaca College, where she studied conducting with Dr. Janet Galván and Lawrence Doebler and holds a Bachelor’s degree from The College of New Jersey.

Karen Burke is a singer, music director, choral conductor and composer in the field of African-American vocal music.

As an authority on the history and performance practices of Gospel music, she has worked with major choral ensembles and organizations including the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir and Youth Choir, Toronto Choral Society and Ontario Choral Federation, as well as numerous schools and church congregations. In 1988, she co-founded the Juno Award-winning Toronto Mass Choir and continues to serve as their principal director, touring nationally and internationally.

A prolific composer and arranger of Gospel repertoire, Professor Burke has written many original songs for the Toronto Mass Choir’s CDs. Her work on the concert stage and in the recording studio includes collaborations with such leading lights as Alvin Slaughter, Jean Ashworth Bartle and Jackie Richardson.

Professor Burke is the founding director of the York University Gospel Choir. She joined the faculty in York’s Music Department in 2005.

Dr. Lisa Wong is an Associate Professor of Music at The College of Wooster, where she co-chairs the Music Department, directs the Wooster Chorus, and teaches courses in conducting, choral literature, and music education. In addition to her duties at the College, Dr. Wong is Director of Choruses for The Cleveland Orchestra. In this capacity, she oversees all choral performances with the Orchestra, and prepares the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus for performances with Franz Welser-Möst and all guest conductors.

Under Dr. Wong’s direction, the award-winning Wooster Chorus has been selected to perform at the Central Division Conference of the American Choral Directors Association, and selected three times to perform at the state conference of the Ohio Music Education Association. Wong has premiered thirteen new works with the Wooster Chorus, including Jake Runestad’s Ner Ner.(2015)

Dr. Wong has worked with students of all levels, ranging from pre-kindergarten through college. Prior to her appointment at Wooster, she was active as a music educator for sixteen years in public and private schools in New York, Pennsylvania, and Indiana. A strong advocate for music education, Dr. Wong remains active as a clinician, guest conductor, and adjudicator. She regularly serves as a Music Panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts and works as an adjudicator for Festivals of Music. She has presented her work at several music conferences and is frequently invited to work with students and educators in clinics and workshops. In 2013, she was invited to Kenyatta University in Nairobi, Kenya as a part of Tunaweza Kimuziki, and in 2015 was selected as a conductor for Conducting 21C: Musical Leadership for a New Century in Stockholm, Sweden.

Dr. Wong has a Bachelor of Science degree in Music Education from West Chester University, and Master of Music and Doctor of Music degrees in Choral Conducting from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music.

March 18-Dr. Caron Daley is Director of Choral Activities at the Mary Pappert School of Music at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, PA, where she conducts the Voices of Spirit and Pappert Chorale and teaches undergraduate and graduate conducting. Choirs under her direction have performed across the Northeast, including an invited performance at the 2019 National Collegiate Choral Organization Conference. A native of Halifax, Nova Scotia, she has held past conducting appointments with the University of Toronto, Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, National Youth Choir of Canada, Salem Academy and College, and St. Michael's Choir School.

Caron's research explores the application of embodied practices to choral and conductor pedagogy. She is published in Anacrusis, Canadian Music Educator, Research Memorandum Series of Chorus America, Teaching Music through Performance in Choir Vol. 4 and Vol. 5, Choral Journal, Journal of Singing, and The Choral Scholar. Her current research investigations explore (1) the impact of hand gestures on the learning and retention of non-native phonemes for singing and (2) injury prevention strategies and curricular implications in conducting.

Caron holds a D.M.A. (Choral Conducting) from the University of Toronto, an M.M. (Choral Conducting) and M.A. (Vocal Pedagogy) from The Ohio State University, an Artist Diploma (Voice) and B.M. (Music Education) from Western University, and an A.R.C.T. (Voice) from the Royal Conservatory of Canada. She currently serves as President of the American Choral Directors Association of Pennsylvania.

Passionate about conductor education, Caron founded the Halifax Choral Conducting Institute in 2013, a summer training program that attracted participants and clinicians internationally. In 2019, the HCCI inaugurated a Women's Conducting Intensive, the first of its kind in Canada. In 2021, Caron leads a new conducting program at Duquesne, Choral Kaleidoscope, in collaboration with the Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh.

Areas of Expertise: Dalcroze Eurhythmics, Conducting Pedagogy, Teaching Women Conductors, Vocal Pedagogy, Injury Prevention

Dr. Ramona Wis is the Mimi Rolland Endowed Professor in the Fine Arts, Professor of Music, and Director of Choral Activities at North Central College in Naperville, Illinois. She conducts the Concert Choir, Chamber Singers, and Women’s Chorale and teaches courses in conducting, music methods, and servant leadership.

An active festival conductor, clinician, writer, and public speaker, Dr. Wis has presented workshops across the country and in Canada, including presentations for the British Columbia Music Educators Association, the International Conference of the Greenleaf Center for Servant-Leadership, Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic, GALA Choruses, the Tennessee Arts Academy, American Choral Directors Association, and the Illinois and Ohio Music Educators Associations. Her book, The Conductor as Leader: Principles of Leadership Applied to Life on the Podium has quickly become a leadership classic among conductors and music teachers, as well as those interested in leadership outside the music profession.

Dr. Wis has served as President of the American Choral Directors Association in Illinois and on both ACDA and IMEA executive boards. She has sung under Robert Shaw, James Levine and Margaret Hillis, and has conducted and performed in professional, theatrical, community, and academic settings for more than 35 years. Dr. Wis is also a 200-hr. Certified Yoga Teacher (CYT/RYT), continuing her work on the body/mind connection.

Dr. Nancy Menk holds the Mary Lou and Judd Leighton Chair in Music at Saint Mary's College where she is celebrating her 36th year as professor of music and director of choral activities. She also serves as chair of the Department of Music and teaches graduate conducting at the University of Notre Dame. At Saint Mary's College, Professor Menk conducts the Women's Choir and the Collegiate Choir, teaches conducting, and prepares the Madrigal Singers for the annual Christmas madrigal dinners. Under her direction, the Women’s Choir has performed on tour throughout the United States and it regularly commissions, performs, and records new works for women's voices for their series on the ProOrgano label. Menk also serves as conductor of the 110-voice Northwest Indiana Symphony Chorus.

Menk serves regularly as a guest conductor and choral adjudicator throughout the United States. She has conducted All-State Choirs in Colorado, Delaware, Indiana, Kentucky, North Dakota, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. In August 2011, she served as guest conductor for the Hong Kong Youth Music Camp Chorus. In 2014, she appeared at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, conducting music by American composer Gwyneth Walker for women’s voices and orchestra. In March 2019, she made her seventh appearance at Carnegie Hall, conducting a program of works for women’s voices and orchestra by Michael Haydn, Johannes Brahms, Ralph Vaughan William, Libby Larsen, and Ola Gjeilo. In 2017, she became the first woman to program and conduct a subscription concert of the South Bend Symphony Orchestra.

She holds the BS and the MA degrees in music education from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and the MM and the DMA degrees in Choral Conducting from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.

March 19-Dr. Kimberly Dunn Adams is the Director of Choral Activities and Assistant Professor of Music at Western Michigan University, where she directs the University Chorale, Collegiate Singers, Grand Chorus, and graduate program in choral conducting. She also teaches choral literature, choral conducting, and advanced conducting.

Adams has earned numerous accolades throughout her career. Under her direction, the University Chorale at Western Michigan University received 2nd place in the 2013 American Prize, a national music competition. In the same year, Chorale was featured in an award-winning, nationally-aired commercial for the university. In spring of 2014, the same choir, with Adams conducting, premiered Paul Lansky’s cantata, Contemplating Weather, and recorded the piece for Bridge Records. That album was released in spring of 2015 and is available through iTunes, Amazon, and other international retail distributors. Under her direction, the WMU Chorale was selected to perform at the Michigan ACDA State Convention, the Michigan Music Conference, and the ACDA Regional Conference in Chicago. University Chorale’s latest album, Ex corde, was released in June 2016 and is available internationally for purchase and streaming. In 2015, Adams was named a Conducting Fellow in the ACDA International Conductors Exchange Program with Sweden. She has presented at World Choral Symposium in Spain and Nordic Choral Conference in Sweden (with Dominick DiOrio of Indiana University), the National Collegiate Choral Organization (NCCO) conference, the Michigan Music Conference, and MSVMA’s Summer Workshop. She guest conducted and given workshops to choirs in several countries and multiple U.S. states. As a graduate student, she received 2nd Prize at the American Choral Directors Association national conducting competition.

From 2006–11, Adams was the Director of Choral Ensembles and Lecturer in Music at Mount Holyoke College, where she taught conducting and directed the Glee Club, Chorale, and Chamber Singers. She has previously conducted the University of Wisconsin-Madison Masters Singers and Women’s Chorus, Yale Marquand Chapel Choir, Yale Repertory and Recital Choruses, and Oberlin Women’s Choir. In addition, she has served as Assistant Conductor for the Yale Camerata, the Madison Choral Union, the University of Wisconsin Concert Choir, and the University of Wisconsin Opera Theater. Adams has also enjoyed her time as a music director at churches in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Connecticut.

Adams holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in religion from Oberlin College and a Bachelor of Music degree in vocal performance from Oberlin Conservatory, where she studied voice with Lorraine Manz and conducting with Hugh Floyd. She received the Master of Music degree in choral conducting from the Yale School of Music, where she studied with Marguerite Brooks and Simon Carrington. Adams earned her Doctor of Musical Arts degree in choral conducting with a minor in music theory at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, studying with Beverly Taylor and Bruce Gladstone. Additionally, she participated in the Oregon Bach Festival conducting master class with Helmut Rilling and was a fellow in orchestral conducting at the Conductor’s Institute at the University of South Carolina with Paul Vermel.

An active member of the American Choral Directors Association, Adams has served as the Massachusetts ACDA Repertoire & Standards Chair for Women’s Choirs and the South-Central-Lower Area Representative for Michigan ACDA. She is currently the College & Student Activities Chair for Michigan ACDA. She is also a member of the Michigan School Vocal Music Association, Chorus America, the National Collegiate Choral Organization, and is President of WMU’s Pi Kappa Lambda Chapter. Adams is highly praised for her energetic, positive, and insightful work as an honor choir conductor and is a sought-after guest conductor, clinician, and adjudicator.

Karen P. Thomas, composer and conductor, is the Artistic Director and Conductor of the Seattle Pro Musica. Her compositions are performed and broadcast throughout the world, by groups such as The Hilliard Ensemble, NOTUS, and the Vocal Consort of Brussels. Her works are published by Santa Barbara Music Publishing and Karen P. Thomas Music, and have been featured at numerous festivals and conferences.

A prize-winning composer, she has received grants from the NEA, The American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, and Meet the Composer, among numerous others. Among her many commissions are works for the Harvard/Radcliffe Choirs, the Grand Jubilee in Rome, the American Guild of Organists, the Pacific Chorale, Chorus Austin, and the Association of Anglican Musicians.

As a conductor, Ms. Thomas has produced eleven critically-acclaimed CDs, and received the Margaret Hillis Award for Choral Excellence and the ASCAP-Chorus America Award. She has appeared as guest conductor at international festivals in Europe and North America, and the NPR radio show Saint Paul Sunday. She received a 2018 Seattle Mayor’s Arts Award and the 2012 Outstanding Choral Director Award for Washington State, and currently serves on the boards of Chorus America and the American Choral Directors Association (NW Division).

Brittney Boykin (B.E. Boykin) is a native of Alexandria, Virginia and comes from a musical family. At the age of 7, she began piano lessons and continued her studies through high school under the tutelage of Mrs. Alma Sanford. Mrs. Sanford guided her through various competitions, such as the NAACP’s ACT-SO competition where she garnered 1st place for 3 consecutive years in the local competition. Also, in the spring of 2007, Ms. Boykin was awarded The Washington Post “Music and Dance Award.”

Ms. Boykin pursued her classical piano studies at Spelman College under the leadership of Dr. Rachel Chung. During her time at Spelman, Ms. Boykin was the student accompanist for the Spelman College Glee Club for all 4 years. While being an active student in the music department, she also attended classes to pursue her interest in composition. These classes challenged her musical imagination, and she began to compose and arrange a number of choral compositions. Her compositions quickly became popular, including her arrangement of “Go Down, Moses” and a setting of “Ave Maria.” In fact, both of these arrangements were performed and recorded by the Spelman College Glee Club during her sophomore, junior and senior years. During her tenure at Spelman College as a student, Ms. Boykin also won 1st place at the 2009 James A. Hefner HBCU Piano Competition at Tennessee State University and traveled abroad to perform in the Grumo Music Festival in Grumo, Italy during the summer of 2010.

After graduating Spelman College in 2011 with a B.A. in Music, Ms. Boykin continued her studies at Westminster Choir College of Rider University in Princeton, New Jersey. She continued to compose music during her time at Westminster and was awarded the R and R Young Composition Prize just a few months shy of graduating. In May of 2013, Ms. Boykin graduated from Westminster Choir College with a M.M. in Sacred Music with a concentration in choral studies.

Ms. Boykin’s choral piece, “We Sing as One,” was commissioned to celebrate Spelman College’s 133rd Anniversary of its founding at the 2014 Founders Day Convocation. She has also been featured as the conductor/composer-in-residence for the 2017 Harry T. Burleigh Commemorative Spiritual Festival at Tennessee State University. Ms. Boykin’s instrumental and choral works are currently being published and distributed through her own publishing company, Klavia Press.

She is currently the Assistant Director of the Spelman College Glee Club, as well as the Director of the Treble Choir at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Additionally, Ms. Boykin is also the newly appointed Interim Director of Choral Activities at Agnes Scott College. She is currently PhD candidate at Georgia State University with an emphasis in Music Education.

Acclaimed conductor, pianist, singer, producer and non-profit leader Josephine Lee has made a widespread impact in the fields of music and education through an array of engagements across the globe. Ms. Lee has worked with a sterling roster of local and international artists and currently serves as President and Artistic Director of the United States’ preeminent youth choral organization, Chicago Children’s Choir.

Delivering a “sensuous and bluesy” performance (The New York Times), Ms. Lee recently sang in the world premiere of Pulitzer Prize finalist Ted Hearne’s Place, which received a Grammy nomination for Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance and played to critical acclaim at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Next Wave Festival. Other recent artistic engagements include a collaboration with Peter CottonTale on the viral work Together in Google’s Year in Search video (2020) and performance on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert (2021), an Obama Foundation feature called A Chorus of Hope (2021), a conducting debut with members of the National Philharmonic at Strathmore and Grammy Award-winning artist Lisa Fischer and her band Grand Baton (2019); a collaboration with Chicago Children’s Choir and Bobby McFerrin & The SpiritYouAll Band at Ravinia Festival (2019); the development and world premiere of Long Way Home (2018), a fully staged theatrical work with the Q Brothers Collective; the co-creation of the original world musical Sita Ram with David Kersnar of Lookingglass Theatre (2003, 2006, 2012); an original suite for piano and cello, Ascension, commissioned by Ballet Chicago (2017); an original piano composition, The Good Goodbyes, commissioned by Frank Chaves and River North Dance Chicago (2012); a collaboration on Chance the Rapper’s debut studio album The Big Day (2019) as well as a collaboration on his Grammy Award-winning Coloring Book, for which Ms. Lee led choruses in studio recordings and tour performances in 2016. In 2015, Ms. Lee founded Vocality, a festival chorus comprising Chicago Children’s Choir alumni as well as young vocal artists from a wide array of communities within and surrounding the city of Chicago whose mission is to exemplify the highest level of choral singing with an emphasis on excellence and diversity within its membership. Vocality made its premiere in July 2015 at Ravinia Festival in a concert performance of Porgy and Bess with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of Bobby McFerrin. Vocality returned to Ravinia Festival in July 2018 in a new staged production of Leonard Bernstein’s MASS under the direction of Marin Alsop as well as the encore production in July 2019, which was filmed for a national PBS broadcast to be released in 2020. Ms. Lee’s past orchestral engagements include those with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Sinfonietta, Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra, Grant Park Orchestra, Lyric Opera Orchestra, Oregon Symphony and Sphinx Virtuosi. Future engagements include the development of a new theatrical work by J. Nicole Brooks, David Kersnar and Chicago Children’s Choir Composer in Residence W. Mitchell Owens III.

In her role as President and Artistic Director of Chicago Children’s Choir (CCC), Ms. Lee has revolutionized the field of youth choral music through cutting-edge performances of diverse repertoire and innovative collaborations with world-class artists. Through her vision and leadership, Ms. Lee has doubled the number of students served to 5,000, tripled the organization’s budget and established CCC as one of Chicago’s premier cultural institutions, solidifying partnerships with renowned arts organizations, including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Ravinia Festival and Grant Park Orchestra and directing new works that capture the pulse of contemporary life in the global age.

In recognition of her leadership of Chicago Children’s Choir, Ms. Lee received the Kennedy Center’s National Committee for the Performing Arts Award for Arts Advocacy in 2018, the Roman Nomitch Fellowship in 2012 to attend the Harvard Business School’s Strategic Perspectives in Nonprofit Management program and was awarded the Jesse L. Rosenberger Medal in 2014 from the University of Chicago. Ms. Lee was recently featured in “The Transformative Power of Music,” a segment on Oprah Winfrey Network’s acclaimed show, Super Soul Sunday. Ms. Lee holds a bachelor’s degree in piano performance from DePaul University and a master’s degree in conducting from Northwestern University.

Joan Szymko* (b.1957) is a composer and conductor from the Pacific Northwest. With a catalog of over 100 published choral works, her music is performed by ensembles across North America and abroad. Abundant lyricism, rhythmic integrity and a vigorous attention to text are hallmarks of Szymko's diverse and distinctive choral writing. Fresh and inspiring, her text selections are as notable as her music. Especially significant is Szymko's contribution to the body of quality literature for women's voices. Her music is frequently heard at regional, national and international choral festivals and competitions. Since 2003, her music has been presented at every National Conference of the American Choral Directors Association. The ACDA recognized Szymko's lasting impact on the choral arts in America by selecting her as the recipient of the prestigious Raymond W. Brock Memorial Commission in 2010. Szymko has presented sessions at both regional (Northwest) and national ACDA conferences. She was honored to have been invited to present at the (canceled) 2020 World Symposium on Choral Music in Aukland, New Zealand.

Composing for vocal ensembles is an extension of Szymko's creativity as a choral director. She has inspired community and church choirs in Seattle and Portland for over 40 years. Her passion for the singing voice, an embodied approach to sound, a dedication to craft and artistry, and her insistence on quality texts—all relate to her experience as a conductor and are reflected in her choral compositions. In addition to self published works, her music appears in the catalogs of Santa Barbara Music Publishing, Roger Dean Publishing, Oxford University Press, Walton Music, earthsongs,Treble Clef Press and Yelton Rhodes Music. She was a founding member of the Independent Music Publishers Collective. She has been commissioned by all manner of choral ensemble: professional, community, academic and children’s.

Szymko was born in Chicago, the youngest of five children in a devout Catholic home where faith, education and the arts were core values. She began piano study at age eight, led liturgical music at Mass, sang in her high school choir, but most importantly she was an avid listener to a great diversity of music during her formative years. She began her focus on choral studies at the Chicago Musical College at Roosevelt University and received a B.S. in Music Education (1979) at the University of Illinois (Urbana) with a vocal/choral emphasis. She left for Seattle following graduation and soon began arranging and composing music to fill the repertoire needs of the progressively leaning women's and church choirs she directed there in the 1980's and early 90's. During her first decade as a choral professional, she expanded her knowledge of conducting and vocal pedagogy by way of numerous workshops and summer sessions. A year of composition study at the University of Washington (1988) and a successful musical theater collaboration, (Cradle and All 1990), solidified her determination to continue the pursuit of a career in music with an emphasis on composition.

In 1993 Szymko was invited to Portland, Oregon to take on the leadership of Aurora Chorus, a 100 voice women's community chorus. Soon after arriving in Portland, she founded the select women's choir, Viriditas Vocal Ensemble. She composed prolifically for this group as well as for Aurora Chorus and several of Szymko's best known early works were premiered by these two ensembles. With Viriditas (1994-2002) her mission was to provide an exceptional, eclectic choral experience for both singers and audience. Performances explored connections between music and ritual, unique collaborations, and were aimed at bringing down the "fourth wall" between performers and audience. She began and maintains a fruitful collaborative relationship with Robin Lane and Do Jump! Movement Theater (since 1994) and performed her music with the company in Portland, on Broadway, at the Kennedy Center and Geffen Playhouse in LA. (1995-2005).

Szymko composed her first large-scale work for chorus and orchestra when commissioned by Eugene Vocal Arts to both create the libretto and compose a work focusing on those faced with the tragedy of Alzheimer's dementia. ”Shadow and Light” for mezzo-soprano, tenor, soprano, SATB chorus and 30 piece chamber orchestra was premiered in April 2016 to great critical acclaim. This notable hour-long addition to the choral-orchestral repertoire will be made available by Joan Szymko Music in 2017.

Szymko continues to live and work in Portland, Oregon. She served on the choral faculty at Portland State University as director of Vox Femina (2013-15) and after 26 season recently retired as Artistic Director of Aurora Chorus. As a visiting artist and clinician, she has workshopped her music with choirs in a variety of educational and community settings across the US and in the Netherlands. (*pronounced: SHIM-koh)

Dr. Marcela Molina has been affiliated with the Tucson Girls Chorus since 2006, first serving as Artistic Director and taking the helm as Executive Director in 2011. Under Dr. Molina’s guidance, the Tucson Girls Chorus has grown significantly in both programming and community engagement. With her leadership, the TGC has transformed into a collaborative organization that creates access to inclusive programming for youth, and provides resources to music educators and support to their classroom all year-round.

In 2011, she was an honoree in Tucson's 40 under 40 for her significant achievements and contributions in her profession and community. In 2014, Dr. Molina was one of eight in the state of Arizona chosen as a Cox Hispanic Heritage Month honoree and in 2016 she was selected as finalist for the Woman of Influence Awards in the category Arts and Culture Champion. In 2017, under Molina’s leadership, the Tucson Girls Chorus was awarded the 2017 Copper Cactus award for Charitable Business sponsored by the Tucson Metro Chamber.

Born in Bogotá, Colombia Dr. Marcela Molina holds degrees from Westminster Choir College and the University of Arizona. She has contributed articles to Antiphon, the official online publication of the Arizona Choral Directors Association (AzACDA) and the book Teaching through Performance in Choir, Volume 2. She was named 2019 Choral Director of the Year by AzACDA and often serves as a clinician and guest conductor at choral festivals.

Dr. Molina serves on the boards of the Arizona Choral Directors Association and Chorus America. She also serves as part of the DEI standing committee of the ACDA Western Division and the advisory group to The Choral Commons.