ACDA-PA presents the 31st Annual Summer Conference for Choral Musicians
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Anton Armstrong
The 2023-24 season was Anton Armstrong’s 34th year as Conductor of the St. Olaf Choir, marking him as the longest tenured conductor in the ensemble’s storied 112 year history. He is the Harry R. and Thora H. Tosdal Professor of Music at St. Olaf College, becoming the fourth conductor of the St. Olaf Choir in 1990 after ten years in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he served on the faculty of Calvin University and led the Calvin Alumni Choir, Calvin Campus Choir, the Grand Rapids Symphony Chorus and the St. Cecilia Youth Chorale. He is a graduate of St. Olaf College and earned advanced degrees at the University of Illinois (MM) and Michigan State University (DMA). He is editor of a multicultural choral series for Earthsongs Publications and co-editor (with John Ferguson) of the revised St. Olaf Choral Series for Augsburg Fortress Publishers. In June 1998, he began his tenure as founding conductor of the Oregon Bach Festival Stangeland Family Youth Choral Academy. Dr. Armstrong currently serves as Chair of the National Board of Chorus America and has returned to serve on the National Board of The Choristers Guild. During the 2023-24 season Anton Armstrong led choral festivals at Carnegie Hall, New York, NY. and Schermerhorn Symphony Center, Nashville, TN He also served as a guest lecturer and clinician at the University of Illinois, Duke University and Baylor University. In October 2023, he returned as President of the Jury of the Busan International Choral Festival in Busan, South Korea. Additional guest conducting appearances took place in Charlotte, NC., Santa Fe, NM., and Manassas, VA. In June 2024 he led the St. Olaf Choir on their first tour to South Africa. Dr. Armstrong has frequently conducted ensembles and appeared before regional, national and international gatherings of the American Choral Directors Association, International Federation of Choral Music, National Association for Music Education, Choristers Guild, American Guild of Organists, Association of Lutheran Church Musicians, Organization of American Kodaly Educators and the Orff-Schulwerk Association. In recent years he has guest conducted such noted ensembles as the Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square, the Utah Symphony and Symphony Chorus, the Utah Voices and Salt Lake City Symphony, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Westminster Choir, the American Boychoir, The Houston Chamber Choir, The Vocal Arts Ensemble of Cincinnati, The Phoenix Chorale, Indonesia Youth Choir, and the Ansan City Choir, South Korea. He has also collaborated in concert with Bobby McFerrin and Garrison Keillor. In March 2017, The St. Olaf Christmas Festival, one of the oldest musical celebrations of Christmas in the United States begun in 1912 by F. Melius Christiansen, founder of the St. Olaf College Music Department was featured by invitation in two major performances at the National Conference of the American Choral Directors Association at Orchestra Hall, Minneapolis, MN. Since 1990, Anton Armstrong has served as Artistic Director of the St. Olaf Christmas Festival which features nearly 600 student musicians who are members of five St. Olaf Choral ensembles and the St. Olaf Orchestra. In January 2006, Baylor University selected Anton Armstrong from a field of 118 distinguished nominees to receive the Robert Foster Cherry Award for Great Teaching. He spent February-June 2007 in residency at Baylor University as a visiting professor. In March 2007 Anton Armstrong was the first recipient of the Distinguished Alumni Award from the American Boychoir School and in October 2009 he received The Distinguished Alumni Award from Michigan State University. In June 2013 Dr. Armstrong received the Saltzman Award from the Oregon Bach Festival. The festival’s highest honor, the Saltzman Award is bestowed upon individuals who have provided exceptional levels of leadership to the organization. In the Fall of 2014, The St. Olaf Choir and Dr. Armstrong received a Regional Emmy for the PBS television program Christmas in Norway with The St. Olaf Choir. In 2021, Anton Armstrong was named an Honorary Life Member of the National Collegiate Choral Organization. Honorary Life Members are recognized as members of the choral profession who have devoted their life to the enhancement and artistic growth of the choral art. The award recognizes those leaders in the choral profession who have mentored young conductors, inspired singers, supported music educators in the arts, and shared their talents and gifts in the United States and abroad. In September 2022, Dr. Armstrong will receive the Distinguished Legacy Award, from the College of Fine and Applied Arts at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the 2022: 50 Over 50 Honoree in the Arts Award from AARP-Minnesota and the Pollen Midwest. |
Pearl Shangkuan
Dr. Pearl Shangkuan is a highly sought-after conductor, lecturer and clinician who has led performances and workshops on six continents. She is the National President-elect of the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA), having previously served on the Board of Directors of Chorus America, as well as ACDA central division president and ACDA Michigan state president. She is the chorus director of the Grand Rapids Symphony, a Grammy-nominated professional orchestra and Professor Emerita of Music at Calvin University in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Appointed in 2022 as the Editor of Hinshaw Music, a major choral music publisher in North America, she also has a signature choral series with earthsongs and is the music editor of the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship Choral series published by GIA. She has conducted several times at Carnegie Hall and other major concert halls in the US and was an invited guest lecturer at the World Symposium for Choral Music held in Seoul, South Korea. Her guest conducting engagements regularly take her to Europe, Asia, and across North America. Dr. Shangkuan has served on the jury of several international choral competitions in Europe and Asia and has led conducting masterclasses for the ACDA national conference, Chorus America conferences, the University of Michigan and the University of Illinois Choral Conducting Symposium among many prominent programs, institutions and organizations in the US. She has conducted numerous All State choirs, ACDA national and division honor choirs, and choral festivals nationally and internationally and has headlined several ACDA state and other professional conferences. She has commissioned and premiered numerous choral works and her choirs have performed at ACDA national, division and state conferences. The Michigan YWCA honored her with its Arts Tribute Award in 2007. In 2013, Michigan ACDA honored her with the Maynard Klein Choral Award for “artistic excellence and lifetime leadership in choral music.” In 2020, she received a Calvin University Award for Excellence in Teaching. In 2023, the National Collegiate Choral Organization (NCCO) gave her its Honorary Life Member Award for “distinguished leadership and extraordinary service to the choral community, both nationally and internationally.” |
Opening Concert: Bach Choir of Bethlehem
THE OLDEST AMERICAN BACH CHOIR, The Bach Choir of Bethlehem gave the first complete American performances of Bach’s Mass in B Minor in 1900 and Christmas Oratorio in 1901. Since its founding in 1898, the now-famous Choir has been attracting thousands of visitors from across the United States and beyond to the annual Bethlehem Bach Festival in Pennsylvania. In 2022, Dr. Christopher Jackson became the seventh Artistic Director and Conductor of The Bach Choir of Bethlehem. The 90 dedicated volunteer singers of The Bach Choir, performing with the Bach Festival Orchestra and distinguished soloists, have received international acclaim. Programming includes 40 concerts and educational programs per year for an audience of more than 22,000. Venues have included the Herkulessaal at Munich’s Royal Residence and the Thomaskirche, Bach’s church in Leipzig, as part of the 1995 Germany tour; The Kennedy Center and Carnegie Hall as part of The Choir’s Centennial Celebration in 1998–2000; the BBC Proms in London’s Royal Albert Hall as part of an eight-concert tour of the United Kingdom in 2003; and Severance Hall, Cleveland, for the 75th anniversary of the Baldwin Wallace Bach Festival in 2007. In September 2011, The Bach Choir represented the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in a 10th anniversary musical observance of 9/11 in New York City, giving concerts in Saint Paul’s Chapel and Trinity Church, Wall Street. In 2013, The Choir performed Mendelssohn’s Elijah at Strathmore in the Washington, D.C., area, and in 2014, the new opera Young Meister Bach for the 250th anniversary of the German Society of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. The Choir has released 11 recordings on the Dorian and Analekta labels, including most recently Bach’s Cantata 21 and Handel’s Ode for Saint Cecilia’s Day (2018), A Child’s Christmas in Bethlehem (2013), and Saint John Passion (2012). The Choir has been featured on National Public Radio’s Performance Today and Prairie Home Companion, Deutsche Radio, the BBC World Service, CBS Sunday Morning, and the Emmy award-winning PBS documentary on The Choir, Make a Joyful Noise. It has been recognized for its outstanding educational outreach programs (Bach at Noon, Bach to School, and interdisciplinary Family Concerts) by annual awards from the National Endowment for the Arts (2011–2020). The J.S. Bach Foundation in Switzerland named The Bach Choir of Bethlehem as the first American recipient of its annual award to a single Bach organization, recognizing The Bach Choir’s outstanding work in Bach performance and education for young people (2012). Mr. Bach Comes to Call, a film based on the acclaimed Classical Kids CD, was co-produced by The Bach Choir of Bethlehem and is distributed internationally by the Children’s Group. The Bel Canto Youth Chorus is The Bach Choir’s youth choir educational program under the direction of Director Kelly Rocchi. Through Bel Canto and other educational programs, The Bach Choir is training the next generation of choral singers and cultivating a life-long passion for the choral arts. For more information visit The Bach Choir’s website – BACH.org.
