2022 North Texas Madrigal & Chamber Choir Festival February 26, 2022 Canyon Creek Presbyterian Church Richardson, TX ADJUDICATORS Dianne Brumley is Director of Choral Music Studies and Professor of Music Education, Emerita at The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley – Brownsville. She was appointed in 2003 and was the first person to hold the position of Director of Choral Studies at the University. Brumley was the founding conductor of the University Master Chorale. During her ten-year tenure at UTRGV, the Master Chorale was selected to perform at the 2011 Texas Music Educators Association Convention and toured internationally. Brumley also served for 20 years as the founding Conductor and Artistic Director of the South Texas Chorale and Orchestra.Brumley is a frequent guest conductor, clinician, motivational speaker, and adjudicator throughout Texas and the United States. Currently, she serves as a choral music education consultant. Before her time with the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, Brumley was a successful choral music educator in public schools. Choirs under her direction were selected for honor performances at Texas Music Educators Association conventions, American Choral Directors Association regional and national conventions, and a featured performance at the Texas Choral Directors Association convention. Active in Texas choral music endeavors for many years, in 2011 Brumley was honored to receive the Texas Choral Excellence Award and in 2018 the Texas Choir Master Award from the Texas Choral Directors Association. Conductor-teacher 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. 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. 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. 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. John Ratledge, Professor Emeritus, The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL, was the Conductor of University Singers, Area Coordinator of Graduate Choral Conducting, and Director of Choral Activities. Ratledge made his European orchestral conducting debut in 1996 with the Filharmonia Sudecka of Walbrzych and Wroclaw, and Poland, and since then, he has conducted orchestras in France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Romania, and Spain. During his tenure at Shorter College of Rome, Georgia, the Shorter Chorale distinguished itself nationally and internationally by giving the world premiere of the full orchestral version of the Duruflé Requiem in Poland, Hungary, Romania, and Greece and the organ version premiere of the same work in Bulgaria; the world premiere of Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms in Poland, and the St. Petersburg, Russia world premieres of Handel’s Messiah in English and Corigliano’s Fern Hill. He is the Founder and Artistic Director of the Bassi Brugnatelli International Conducting and Singing Symposium held annually in Robbiate, Italy, and he is the editor of the new Javier Busto Choral Series of Carl Fischer Music Publishers. American Classic Tours & Music Festivals 85 NE Interstate 410 Loop, Ste. 616 San Antonio, TX 78216 Call for more information: 1-800-733-8384 www.amclass.com CLINICIANS Michael Murphy is the Director of Choral Activities and Associate Professor of Music at Stephen F. Austin State University. Before his appointment to SFASU, Michael was Director of Choral Activities and Associate Professor at University of Idaho for nine years, where he was Founder and Artistic Director of the Idaho Bach Festival and was recognized with the UI Faculty Award for outstanding scholarship, teaching, and engagement. Dr. Murphy is an active clinician, adjudicator, author, and composer. His international conducting and teaching experiences include Austria, China, Czech Republic, Ecuador, Germany, Norway, Panama, and Sweden. Murphy is the co-author and editor of Conducting Primer in Practice, has been published several times in Choral Journal, and contributed to volume 4 of Teaching Music Through Performance in Choir. As a passionate champion of music for all, Michael has experience teaching all ages and levels and several auditioned and non-auditioned collegiate, community, school, and church choirs. His choirs have been invited to perform for several state and regional ACDA and NafME conferences, and he has held several state and national leadership positions in ACDA, NAfME, and NCCO. Murphy received his degrees in conducting and choral music education from Florida State University and East Carolina University. Pearl Shangkuan is a highly sought-after conductor, lecturer, and clinician who has led performances and workshops across six continents. Director of Choral Activities and Vocal Studies, Professor of Music at Calvin University in Grand Rapids, Michigan, she is also chorus director of the Grand Rapids Symphony. Shangkuan has a choral series with earthsongs and edits GIA’s Calvin Choral series. Dr. Shangkuan has also served on the jury of several international choral competitions in Europe and Asia and has led conducting masterclasses for ACDA, Chorus America, the University of Michigan, and many institutions and organizations in the US. She has conducted numerous All-State honor choirs, ACDA division honor choirs, and other choir festivals nationally and internationally, and has headlined several ACDA state conferences. She served as president of ACDA Central Division and Michigan ACDA. Her choirs have performed at ACDA national, division, and state conferences. Michigan ACDA honored her with the Maynard Klein Choral Award for “artistic excellence and lifetime leadership in choral music.” She received a Bachelor of Music in Church Music (summa cum laude) and Master of Music in Choral Conducting (with distinction) from Westminster Choir College in Princeton, New Jersey, and a DMA in Choral Conducting from Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. Betsy Cook Weber is Professor of Music and Director of Choral Studies at the University of Houston’s Moores School of Music and is also active internationally as a conductor, clinician, adjudicator, and lecturer. Weber also serves as Director of the Houston Symphony Chorus. In that role, she prepares choral-orchestral masterworks for some of the world’s greatest conductors. Choirs under Weber’s direction have been featured at multiple state (TMEA 2002, 2005, 2008, 2013, 2017) and national conventions (ACDA 2007 and 2017 and NCCO 2017). Internationally, Weber has led choirs in performances with orchestras in the Czech Republic, Poland, and Germany and to top prizes at prestigious competitions in Wales, France, Germany, Hungary, and Italy. Weber routinely prepares singers for Houston’s early music orchestras Ars Lyrica and Mercury Houston, as well as preparing singers for touring shows, including Josh Groban, the Eagles, NBC’s Clash of the Choirs, Telemundo’s Latin Grammy’s, Star Wars in Concert, Andreas Bocelli, and Harry Potter. In 2013, Weber became the 1st woman to receive TCDA’s Texas Choirmaster Award. She is editor of the Betsy Cook Weber choral series with Alliance Music Publishing Before coming to the University of Houston, Weber taught vocal music, K-12, in the public schools. She holds degrees from the University of North Texas, Westminster Choir College (Princeton, NJ), and the University of Houston..