Jerold D. Ottley

Jerold Don Ottley was the music director of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir from 1974 to 1999. His duties with the choir included the preparation and performance of nearly thirteen hundred weekly radio and television broadcasts of Music and the Spoken Word. He also led the choir in more than thirty commercial recordings and more than twenty major tours, in addition to regular concerts in the choir's home in the Salt Lake City tabernacle.

Early in his career, Dr. Ottley was a teacher and conductor in the schools and churches of Salt Lake City. Just prior to his appointment with the Tabernacle Choir, he taught on the music faculty at the University of Utah and served as the assistant chair of the music department. Since his retirement, he has been involved in volunteer work for four years as administrator and teacher for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Training School at Temple Square, as a Tabernacle Choir staff volunteer revising the choral library computer database, as artistic advisor to the Salt Lake Interfaith Roundtable, and as a lay bishop for a congregation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. From 2005 to 2008, he directed the University Chorale at Brigham Young University-Hawaii, a LDS church-owned university in the town of Laie on Oahu's north shore.

Matthew Owens

Matthew Owens became Conductor of The Exon Singers in 1997. He has broadcast with them regularly on BBC Radios 3 & 4, given concerts throughout the country and directed the annual Exon Singers Festival in Devon. Under his direction, The Exon Singers has premiered a series of new works by, among others, Richard Allain, Grayston Ives and George Lloyd and recorded George Lloyd's Requiem on the Albany label. Most recently, the choir recorded the Victoria Vespers, which is the first of a series of recordings with Delphian Records.

Matthew Owens is also Organist and Master of the Choristers of Wells Cathedral, a post which he took up at the age of 33 in January 2005. He was previously Organist and Master of the Music at St Mary's Episcopal Cathedral, Edinburgh and Sub Organist of Manchester Cathedral.

Christopher Page

A philologist by training, a musicologist by proven merit, and a performer by deep instinct, Christopher Page integrates the various aspects of his professional life as a humanist in the best sense of the word. He once welcomed a reviewer's comment that described his book as "Social history illuminated by its interest in music as an essential part of human experience." Page's career in scholarly teaching and publication freely informs his life as a performer of medieval musics and vice versa; both contribute to his vibrant analyses of medieval thought, especially that concerning music and the experience of music in human society. Page's academic credentials include a bachelor's degree in English from Oxford University (1974) and a PhD. from the University of York (1981). While completing his dissertation on Anglo-Saxon verse forms, he began publishing articles on the history of musical instruments as seen in medieval texts and illuminations, as well as papers on performance practice. New College, Oxford, appointed him lecturer in Old and Middle English (1980-1985), followed by the University of Cambridge in 1985.

Stefan Parkman

Swedish conductor Stefan Parkman began his musical career by singing in the Uppsala Cathedral Boys' Choir. At the Royal College of Music in Stockholm he studied singing, as well as choral conducting with Eric Ericson and orchestral conducting with Jorma Panula. He was director of the Boy's Choir at Uppsala Cathedral from 1974 to 1988, and conducter of the Royal Philharmonic Chorus in Stockholm from 1985 to 1993. Since 1983 he has been conducter of the Uppsala Chamber Choir. In 1988 he was appointed chief conducter of the Danish National Radio Choir, having been a regular guest since 1983. Stefan Parkman has conducted most of Scandinavia's symphony orchestras and ensembles. He performs regularly with the Swedish Radio Choir, and often works with Stockholm Opera and the Drottningholm Festival Opera and Ballet. As a freelance conducter Stefan Parkman appears with numerous ochestras and ensembles in Scandinavia, including the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the Royal Opera in Stockholm. He regularly conducts the Swedish Radio Choir, the Rundfunkchor Berlin and the BBC Singers, teaches choral conducting at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm and gives master-classes in Scandinavia and elsewhere.

Elizabeth Patterson

Elizabeth C. Patterson has been director of Gloriae Dei Cantores since 1988, and under her inspired leadership, the choir has achieved musical expertise and international renown. In Tune commended her for "genius in selecting just the right tempos and dynamics...serious, winning and convincing." Commenting on her conducting, the New York Times noted "clear commitment to rigorous training by the choir's conductor, Elizabeth Patterson."

Elizabeth C. Patterson's extensive experience as a music educator, coupled with her gifts as an interpreter of great intelligence and depth, have contributed greatly to the choir's accomplishments over the past decade, and as stated by Musical Opinion, "the music's deeply spiritual quality comes across with great force." Patterson has also gained recognition for her extensive contribution in the interest of Gregorian chant, by performance of chant in concert with Gloriae Dei Cantores, and by authoring a book on chant, The Sound Eternal.

Simon Phipps

Simon Phipps was born in London and received his early musical training as a chorister at New College, Oxford. He took his B.A. as a Choral Scholar at King's College, Cambridge and went on to study singing at the Guildhall School in London. Conducting studies in Munich and Manchester followed and he made his professional debut at the Gothenburg Opera in 1985.

The next ten years were largely devoted to opera with engagements at Sadlers Wells and English National Opera in London, Krefeld in Germany, and Malmo in Sweden . In 1994 Simon Phipps moved to Sweden and has since then lived in Gothenburg. Although opera is still an important feature of his career (since 2003 he has been the Artistic Director of Lacko Opera Festival and in November 2005 he conducted the Scandinavian premiere of Britten's Paul Bunyan in Gothenburg) orchestral and choral work is now equally important.

Helmuth Rilling

Helmuth Rilling (born 29 May 1933 in Stuttgart) is an internationally known German choral conductor, founder of the Gachinger Kantorei (1954), the Bach-Collegium Stuttgart (1965), the Oregon Bach Festival (1970),(1) the Internationale Bachakademie Stuttgart (1981) and other Bach Academies worldwide, and the "Festival Ensemble Stuttgart" (2001).

Rilling was born into a musical family. He received his early training at the Protestant Seminaries in Wurttemberg. From 1952 to 1955 he studied organ, composition, and choral conducting at the Stuttgart College of Music. He completed his studies with Fernando Germani in Rome and at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena.

Earl Rivers

CCM's graduate conducting program has been recognized by U.S. News and World Report as among the top five in the U.S.A. CCM's Choral Program was the recipient of the Dale Warland Singers Score Library and Archives and recently hosted the winter 2010 Central Division convention of the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA) and the fall 2008 second national conference of the National Collegiate Choral Organization (NCCO).

Music Director and Conductor for twenty seasons from 1988-2008 of the Vocal Arts Ensemble of Cincinnati (VAE), a professional chamber choir, Rivers and the VAE received two ASCAP-Chorus America Awards for "Adventuresome Programming of Contemporary Music."

Rivers has conducted CCM's choral and orchestral forces in acclaimed university and regional premieres of John Adams's On the Transmigration of Souls, Philip Glass's Symphony No. 5, Tan Dun's Water Passion after St. Matthew, Krzysztof Penderecki's Credo and Augusta Read Thomas's Ring Out, Wild Bells, To The Wild Sky.

Christopher Robinson

Christopher Robinson has rightly earned the reputation as one of the leading English choral conductors from the second half of the 20th century. While he has been closely identified with sacred music, he has also delved extensively into secular works. His repertory ranges from Baroque to contemporary, but with a decided slant toward 20th century British music. The names Elgar, Britten, Tippett, Maxwell Davies, Berkeley, Howells, Rubbra, Tavener, Walton, and a spate of other 20th century British composers occupy a good portion of his concert programs. That said, Robinson is also a master interpreter of the choral music of Haydn, Mozart, Mendelssohn, Durufle, Rachmaninov, Poulenc, Messiaen, and many other non-British composers. Robinson, who often held the dual post of organist and choirmaster, has also drawn lavish praise for his skills on the organ. He has appeared on more than 50 recordings, mostly as conductor, with a few as organist (Saint-Saens' Organ Symphony, for example) and a handful serving in both roles. His recordings are available on numerous labels, including Naxos, Chandos, Brilliant Classics, Hyperion, Nimbus, EMI, Regis, and Guild.

Peter Rutenberg

In 2007-08, Peter Rutenberg begins both his 18th season as music director of Los Angeles Chamber Singers & Cappella and his 39th in the choral arts. Rutenberg has produced radio and records for over two decades. He is president of RCM records, a Grammy-winning conductor and producer of Padilla: Sun of Justice, and producer of the Los Angeles Master Chorale's Grammy-nominated Lauridsen Lux Aeterna CD. He is also a composer of concert, radio, and television music, and has served as master teacher and clinician for various choral music festivals in Southern California, as well as for residencies at UCLA and UC Riverside. As Director of Programming & Production for KUSC, and beginning with the 1984 Olympic Arts Festival, Rutenberg covered every major festival and arts organization in Los Angeles for the balance of the decade. Under his artistic direction, Chorus America's radio series The First Art won the ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award for Broadcasting in 1995. Rutenberg joined the faculty of the UCLA Music Department in 2006.

Paul Salamunovich

Paul Salamunovich is in his final season as director of music at St. Charles Borromeo Church in North Hollywood, California. Under his direction, the choir has risen to preeminence among American church choirs. Salamunovich has been recognized for his contributions to sacred music with a Papal Knighthood in the Order of St. Gregory. His career has been marked by the highest achievements in professional, educational and liturgical music. He conducted the choruses at Loyola Marymount University for 27 years, was music director of the Los Angeles Master Chorale for ten years, and guest conductor throughout the United States, Canada, the Bahamas, South America, Europe, Australia, and the Far East. He has conducted choral segments for such movie soundtracks as First Knight, A.I., Air Force One, Snow Falling on Cedar, and Independence Day. Salamunovich has been honored by ACDA for lifetime achievements at the state, division, and national levels.

Dr. Tim Sharp

Tim Sharp is Executive Director of the American Choral Directors Association. An active choral conductor as well as writer, Dr. Sharp came to ACDA from Rhodes College, Memphis, TN, where he conducted the Rhodes Singers and MasterSingers Chorale. Before his appointment at Rhodes, he was Director of Choral Activities at Belmont University in Nashville, TN.

Dr. Sharp's research and writing focuses pedagogically in conducting and score analysis as evidenced by his publications Precision Conducting, Achieving Choral Blend and Balance, and Up Front! Becoming the Complete Choral Conductor. Dr. Sharp has served ACDA in many capacities, including conducting state honor choirs, as a Choral Journal Editorial Board member, and as a member of ACDA's Research and Publications Committee.

Nigel Short

Nigel began his musical life as a chorister at Solihull Parish Church going on to study singing and piano at the Royal College of Music. He began his career as a soloist in opera and oratorio and as a member of specialist vocal ensembles such as The Tallis Scholars whilst maintaining a regular involvement in church music, firstly as a member of Westminster Abbey Choir then Westminster Cathedral. He joined the King's Singers when he was 27 and stayed with them for seven years.

After a short break of about one ski season in the Swiss Alps he set about founding his own group, Tenebrae, aiming to bring together what he loved best as a singer - namely the more passionate sounds of large Cathedral choirs and the precision of ensembles like The King's Singers - to create a new kind of choral group. Whilst embracing an eclectic repertoire he wanted to have some 'signature' works that would make Tenebrae different, adding a theatrical element that would involve singers moving around as if on stage. To that end he wrote 'The Dream of Herod', with a central role for baritone Colin Campbell, and commissioned Joby Talbot to write Path of Miracles, premiered in July 2005. Since its debut performance in 2001 Tenebrae has given concerts in Spain, Italy, Germany, France, Switzerland, UK, USA and Bermuda.

Jeffrey Skidmore

The English choral conductor, Jeffrey Skidmore, Jeffrey read music at Magdalen College, Oxford, before returning to his native Birmingham when he was 18 to found and develop Ex Cathedra into the internationally-acclaimed choral group it has become today. He subsequently studied music with David Wulstan at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he was a Choral Scholar under Bernard Rose. As Artistic Director and Conductor of Ex Cathedra he has pioneered historically informed performances of Renaissance and Baroque music in Birmingham and the West Midlands, and directed the first performances of many new editions, including two French Baroque operas, Zaide by Royer and Isis by Lully. He has prepared his own editions of Monteverdi's Spiritual Madrigals and was recently awarded Honorary Fellowships from the University of Birmingham and the University of Central England.

Gregg Smith

I am told by various relatives that I was actually composing at the age of five. The story they tell is that when called to dinner I would always procrastinate, asking for just a few minutes more to write out some additional notes. But my real memories of myself as a composer start around the age of 17. Having heard Milhaud's Suadedos de Brazil, I wanted to write a couple of South American piano pieces of my own. The result was a suite called From the Rio. It was a very good effort for a 17 year old.

Soon after, I moved to California where I enrolled at UCLA and also joined an amateur adult choir conducted by a fine high school director named Jim Burt. He was very encouraging of me as a composer, trying out a few things of mine with his adult choir and then performing two Keats settings with his High School group. It was my first real public performance.

Magen Solomon

Artistic Director of Choral Artists since 1995, Dr. Solomon has avidly cultivated engagements with living composers to bridge the gulf between composer, performer, and audience. Under her leadership, SFCA established the Composer-in-Residence program in 1999, the Bi-annual Composer's Invitational in 2001, and the New Voices Competition to help launch the artistic careers of young composers in 2005.

Under her leadership, San Francisco Choral Artists has premiered over 130 choral works, performed for the 2008 and 1998 Western Division conventions of the American Choral Directors Association, and released two CDs, Music Among Friends (2005) and So Gracious Is the Time (1999).

An innovative teacher and musician, Dr. Solomon joined the choral conducting faculty of the University of Southern California in 2004. She has also taught and conducted at Smith and Mount Holyoke colleges, and University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Santa Clara University, and she has studied conducting with Robert Fountain, Richard Pittman, David Becker, and Helmuth Rilling.

Ants Soots

Ants Soots has been principal conductor of Estonian Song Celebrations as XXII Song Celebration in 1994 and XXIV Song Celebration "Alati teel" („Always on the Road") in 2004. He has been artistic director of XXIII Song Celebration in 1999 and XXV Song Selebration „Üheshingamine" („To Breathe as One") in 2009, also festivals as Nordic-Baltic Choral Festival (1997, 2002) , „Parnu 2002" and „Tallinn 2007".

Ants Soots has led seminars and master courses in Estonia, Japan, Lithuania, Sweden, Israel, Finland and Spain (including colloquium of Estonian choral music at international choir music conference in Altea, 2000). In 1996-2000 Soots was chairman of the Estonian Choral Association. Ants Soots has been awarded Gustav Ernesaks Scholarship (1999), Order of the White Star, 5th class (2002), Annual Prizes of the Estonian Cultural Endowment for both Music and Folk Art (2004). In 2006 Soots was elected honorary conductor of the Estonian National Male Choir. In 2008 Ants Soots was given Estonia's State Cultural Award.

Robert Spano

Robert Spano is recognized as one of the brightest and most imaginative conductors of his generation. Now in his ninth season as Music Director of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, he has enriched and expanded its repertoire through his characteristically innovative programming, and elevated the ensemble to new levels of international prominence and acclaim.

In his distinguished career, Robert Spano has conducted the greatest orchestras of North America, including those in Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Los Angeles, Montreal, New York, Philadelphia and San Francisco. Abroad he has led the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Orchestra Filarmonica della Scala (Milan), Czech Philharmonic, Berlin Radio Sinfonie Orchestra, BBC Scottish and BBC Symphony Orchestras, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, New Japan Philharmonic, and Oslo Philharmonic, among others.

Jeremy Summerly

Jeremy Summerly is Head of Academic Studies at the Royal Academy of Music in London. As well as a conductor and lecturer he is a writer / presenter for BBC Radio and an editor for Faber Music. He graduated from Oxford University with First Class Honours in Music and thereafter undertook musicological research at King's College, London, while also working as a Studio Manager for BBC Radio. He founded the Oxford Camerata in 1984 and between 1990 and 1996 he was conductor of Schola Cantorum of Oxford. He has conducted over forty commercial recordings of music spanning nine centuries and he made his conducting debut at the BBC Proms in 1999 and at the Berlin Philharmonie in 2005. He has given concert tours throughout Europe and the United States as well as in Israel, Japan, Indonesia, Hong Kong, South Africa, and Botswana. He has conducted Ligeti for Ligeti, Kagel for Kagel, and Part for Part.

In 1995 he was a recipient of a European Cultural Prize from the European Association for the Encouragement of the Arts (Basel, Switzerland) and in 2007 he was made an honorary associate of the Royal Academy of Music in London.

Nancy Telfer

Nancy Telfer is a Canadian composer who has been a choral clinician and guest conductor for many provincial, national, and state organizations throughout Canada and the United States. For many years she has presented workshops on vocal production to both choral conductors and singers.

Since 1979 Telfer has composed over 300 works for choirs, soloists, chamber ensembles, orchestras, bands, and pianists; many of which are published in Canada and the United States. Her music ranges from beginning to virtuoso levels and she has been commissioned to compose music for many fine performers. She believes that all music should delight the ears, capture the imagination of the mind, and feed the soul. Successful Sight-Singing, Books 1 & 2 and Successful Warmups, Books 1 & 2 (published by the Neil A. Kjos Music Company), her reputable method books for singers, choirs, and vocal classes, provide innovative systematic teaching materials for sight-singing and every aspect of good vocal production. Her more recent publications, Singing In Tune and Singing High Pitches with Ease, focus on strategies and solutions for conductors, conductors-in-training, and voice teachers. Nancy Telfer's newest book, Successful Performing, focuses on ideas to ensure an outstanding choral performance.

Karen P. Thomas

Karen P. Thomas, composer and conductor, is the artistic/executive director and conductor of the Seattle Pro Musica. With Seattle Pro Musica she has produced seven critically-acclaimed commercial CD recordings, has received the Margaret Hillis Award for Choral Excellence and the ASCAP-Chorus America Award for Adventurous Programming of Contemporary Music, and is currently a finalist for The American Prize for choral conducting.

Ms. Thomas's compositions have been performed at several festivals, including the International Festival Donne in Musica in Italy, the Bergen International Festival in Norway, International Congresses on Women in Music in England and Spain, the Oregon Bach Festival, the Alliance World Festival of Women's Singing, and the Goodwill Arts Festival in the United States. Her compositions are also regularly broadcast on radio and television throughout the United States, Europe, and Latin America. Her choral works are performed by groups such as The Hilliard Ensemble and have been praised as "superb work of the utmost sensitivity and beauty."

Dr. Gail Walton

Gail Walton held the position of Director of Music at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart at the University of Notre Dame from 1988 until her death in 2010 after a long battle with leukemia.

Dr. Walton holds degrees from Westminster Choir College and the Eastman School of Music, where she earned the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Organ Performance. The Eastman School also awarded her the prestigious Performer's Certificate in Organ. She has studied with David Craighead, Russell Saunders, William Hays and Andre Marchal.

Dr. Walton has performed throughout the Midwestern United States and in the summer of 1991 played concerts in the German cities of Bonn, Heidenheim, Mainz and Rottenburg/Neckar. In the summer of 1995 she took the Notre Dame Liturgical Choir on a tour of Italy, including appearances in Florence, Milan, Assisi and Rome.

Fred Waring

Fred Waring's career in the music business spanned more than sixty years. Though his early orchestra was highly successful with its novelty effects and collegiate dance music, it was his later vocal chorus that is best remembered today. The Fred Waring Glee Club was organized in the 1930s and quickly set the standard for choral groups to come. Waring is often called ''The Man Who Taught America How to Sing.''

Raised in his father's Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, music store, Waring studied violin as a youth and was a member of his high school glee club. He formed his first professional band around 1916, a six-man string outfit called Waring's Banjazztra. After graduating from college he took the group to Detroit, where it began to attract the attention of the local music crowd. He later dropped banjo from the line-up and changed the name of the group to the Pennsylvanians.

Dale Warland

Dale Warland, celebrated American musician, has made an indelible impression on the landscape of contemporary choral music both nationally and internationally. During his time with the Dale Warland Singers, he shaped a vocal ensemble known for its exquisite sound, technical finesse, and stylistic range. From that platform, Warland not only mastered the traditional repertoire, but also commissioned 270 new choral works.

The music world has responded by bestowing its highest honors on Warland, including the 2006 Choral Arts Society of Philadelphia's Individual Leadership in Choral Music Award, the Champion of New Music Award from the American Composers Forum (2005). a Distinguished Master Artist Award from the University of South Florida (2004), a Grammy nomination of Walden Pond for best choral performance (2003), the prestigious ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers) Victor Herbert Award (2003) and a special award from Chorus America and ASCAP for Warland's "pioneering vision, leadership and commitment to commissioning and performing new choral works at the highest level of artistry".

Jon Washburn

Jon Washburn is the Conductor and Artistic Director of Canada's outstanding professional vocal ensemble, the Vancouver Chamber Choir. Well known internationally for his mastery of choral technique and interpretation, Washburn travels widely as guest conductor, lecturer, clinician, and master teacher. In addition to Canada and the United States, he has performed in Russia, Finland, Estonia, Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, France, Germany, the Czech Republic, China, Hong Kong, Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Mexico, and Brazil.

Washburn's early musical experience was wide-ranging and eclectic. As a teenager, he was a jazz bass player and band leader. At university, he became heavily involved in musical theatre, specifically acting, singing, conducting, and stage directing. He earned a choral conducting degree at the University of Illinois and proceeded to pursue musicological studies at Northwestern and the University of British Columbia.

Sir David Willcocks

The English conductor, organist and music educator, Sir David Willcocks, began his musical training as a chorister at Westminster Abbey from 1929 to 1934. He was a music scholar at Clifton College, Bristol (1934-1938), and then the organ scholar at King's College, Cambridge (1939-1940). Following a five-year period of war military service, in which he was awarded the Military Cross, he returned to King's College for two years (1945-1947). He was elected a Fellow of King's College, Cambridge, and appointed Conductor of the Cambridge Philharmonic Society.

From 1947 to 1950 David Willcocks was the organist at Salisbury Cathedral and from 1950 to 1957 at Worcester Cathedral. During his years at Worcester he was principal conductor of the Three Choirs Festival (1951, 1954 and 1957) and conductor of the City of Birmingham Choir (1950-1957), with whom he gave his first British performance of Maurice Durufle's Requiem in 1952. From 1956 to 1974 he was also conductor of the Bradford Festival Choral Society. From 1957 to 1974 he was Director of Music at King's College, Cambridge, where he maintained the glorious tradition with distinction. He made numerous recordings that gained international popularity through television and radio.

Randall N. Wolfe

Currently on the faculty of Sinclair Community College and Central State University, I am the conductor of the newly founded Schubert Chorale and the Schubert Boys Choir in northern Cincinnati.

My current teaching assignments include applied voice and piano, choral methods, advanced choral conducting, sight-singing, and music appreciation, and I serve as an assistant for collegiate choral ensembles and a staff accompanist. I have also taught class piano, choral literature and arranging, music theory, and voice class, and I maintain a private piano and voice studio in my home in Mason.

Having taught in the public schools, I served as music director and pianist for the Cincinnati Boychoir for 22 years, giving performances in 23 states and 4 foreign countries, with ensemble performances in 7 additional countries, and concerts by members serving in the Vienna Boys Choir in 24 additional countries.