2026 Headliners & Guest Conductors
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Headliner
Dr. Brandon A. Boyd is the Mary M. and Harry L. Smith Endowed Chair. He is the Director of Choral Activities, Graduate Choral Conducting Program, and Associate Professor of Music at the University of Missouri, where he conducts MU University Singers, Sankofa Chorale, and Choral Union Symphonic Chorus. In addition to his conducting duties at the university, he teaches graduate courses in choral conducting, choral literature, and choral arranging.
As a proponent of choral singing to build community, his research interests include organizing choirs for the homeless, identifying the social and physical effects of choral singing on senior citizens, creating authentic field experiences for music therapy and choral music education students. For three years, Dr. Boyd co-directed three choral community partnerships in Florida: The Tallahassee Senior Choir, RAA Middle School Partnership Choir (university students and middle school singers), and the MTC Women's Prison Glee Club (university students singing with women housed in a correctional facility).
As an active composer and arranger, his music is sung regularly by ensembles throughout the United States and abroad. He is also the curator and editor of the "Brandon A. Boyd Choral Series," a choral series with Hinshaw Music Publications helping promote exciting and innovative works composed by both established and new composers and arrangers. His music also appears in the catalogs of Gentry Publications, Hinshaw Music Company, MorningStar, GIA, and Kjos Music Press. In addition, he is the Executive Choral Editor of Gentry Publications (Fred Bock Publishing Group) and the Abbington African American Sacred Music Series (GIA Publications).
As a global collaborator in the orchestral world, Dr. Boyd has served as chorus master, assistant conductor, and guest pianist with the London Symphony in London, England. He prepared the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra and Vokalensemble for Maestro Alan Gilbert for multiple productions of Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, in Hamburg and Kiel, Germany. In the U.S., he has guest conducted the Nashville Symphony, Missouri Symphony, and the St. Louis Symphony. He has made multiple performances at Carnegie in the capacity of guest conductor, composer, and collaborative pianist.
Dr. Boyd served as guest faculty at the Universidad Católica Boliviana - San Pablo of the Unidad Academica Regional Tarija to provide conducting workshops, in addition to serving as guest conductor of the Philharmonic Orchestra, Sociedad Corla Andaluz, Symphonic Orchestra in a presentation of American music at the Historic Casa de la Cultutura de Tarija (Tarija's House of Culture). He also was a guest professor at the Universidad Evangelica in Santa Cruz, Boliviana. The Partners of the Americas sponsored both university partnerships.
Dr. Boyd served as Santa Fe Desert Chorale’s Composer-in-Residence and Community Engagement Leader for their program Giving Voice to the Voiceless. The Chorale premiered a work commissioned by the SFDC, I Search, during their Summer Justice Concert Series. He served as assistant conductor, pre-concert lecturer, and guest pianist. He set to music a text written by "Poet V," a young participant in the Voces de Libertad program at the Santa Fe County Youth Development Center. His duties also included organizing and conducting the Interfaith Community Shelter Street Choir, thus creating a safe place for men, women, and children experiencing homelessness within the Santa Fe community. Other commissioning partners include Choirs of America Nationals for Top Choirs at Carnegie, Southwestern Adventist University, Florida State University/Tallahassee Community Chorus, New Mexico Music Educators Association, and the University of Nebraska-Kearney.
He holds two degrees from Florida State University (Ph.D. in choral music education and M.M. in choral conducting) and earned a B.S. in music education (emphasis in piano) from Tennessee State University. He is a proud member of the Phi Mu Alpha Music Fraternity, Inc., Pi Kappa Lambda, American Choral Directors' Association (ACDA), National Association for Music Education (NAfME), National Association of Negro Musicians (NANM), American Guild of Organists (AGO), and Chorus America. Dr. Boyd also serves as a member of the National ACDA Composition Initiative committee.
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Headliner
Maria A. Ellis is an accomplished conductor, educator, and broadcaster whose work bridges performance, scholarship, and community impact. She holds a Bachelor of Music in Music Education from the University of Missouri–St. Louis and a Master of Arts with emphasis on Choral Conducting from Webster University. Ellis serves as Artistic Director of The Sheldon’s All-Star Chorus and the University of Missouri–St. Louis Voices of Jubilation, a community gospel choir dedicated to joyful, accessible music-making across generations. She is also the creator and host of two award-winning radio programs, Bach and Beyoncé and American Gospel with Maria A. Ellis, heard on Classic 107.3, The Voice for the Arts in St. Louis. A sought-after clinician and guest conductor, Ellis has led multiple All-State ensembles and conducted international festival choirs, and she made her Carnegie Hall conducting debut in 2023. She serves as Chair of the NAfME Choral Council and sits on the Board of Directors for Chorus America. Maria is the wife of Marion and mother to Aria, Kendal, and Noah.
To learn visit: https://girlconductor.com/.
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Headliner & Treble Honor Choir Conductor
JA San Francisco native, Margaret Nomura Clark joined the Children’s Chorus of Washington as Artistic Director in August 2016. Under her leadership, CCW has partnered with many arts organizations in DC and beyond including: Dance Institute of Washington, Washington Performing Arts, Atlas INTERSECTIONS Festival, GenOUT, Washington Master Chorale, Strathmore Children’s Chorus, The Washington Chorus, US Army Band Pershing’s Own, Duke Ellington High School, Sticks+Bars, Roanoke Valley Children’s Chorus, Shenandoah Valley Children’s Chorus, Boston Children’s Chorus, and Princeton Girlchoir. She has been fortunate to work under the baton of NSO’s conductor Gianandrea Noseda, and additional conductors JoAnn Falleta, Christopher Bell, and Julian Wachner. Under her direction, CCW has performed at The Kennedy Center, Wolf Trap, The White House, the Supreme Court, the Washington Nationals, the opening of the District Wharf, and in South Africa in celebration of Nelson Mandela’s centenary.
Since joining CCW, Mrs. Clark has made it her mission to provide outstanding choral education and performance experiences for youth through collaborative partnerships across the DMV. Two of Mrs. Clark’s primary accomplishments in the areas of collaboration and accessibility have been solidifying CCW’s partnership with DC Public Schools (DCPS) and helping to establish the Joan Gregoryk Scholarship Fund. CCW now works closely with the DCPS music teachers in co-producing the DCPS Honor Chorus Treble Division, providing a choral experience to over 200 students. The newly established scholarship fund has significantly increased CCW’s ability to offer financial assistance to support full participation in CCW programming.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, including the celebration of CCW’s 25th anniversary, her leadership was instrumental in pivoting CCW’s programming to an online format, continuing to support singers’ musical development, and creating inspirational recording projects in lieu of live concerts. A virtual world premiere of Dominick DiOrio’s “Daydreamers,” and a performance of “Peace, Peace” aired on WETA’s Songs of the Season program are among the projects created during this time. Mrs. Clark also served as the Creative and Artistic Producer for the WETA program, which featured choral organizations from around the DMV, was renewed in 2021 and will recur in the 2022 holiday season.
Her latest project includes the newly created Stand Up: Harriet Tubman Tour tracing the route of the Underground Railroad. In partnership with Choir School of Delaware, the tour will stop at significant landmarks and include performances featuring songs of the enslaved with youth choirs from DC to Philadelphia. In addition to her work at CCW, Mrs. Clark is an adjudicator for MD and DC choral festivals and is currently serving as the Diversity Initiatives Co-Chair for the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA) MD/DC chapter.
From 1997 to 2015 Mrs. Clark was the Associate Artistic Director of the San Francisco Boys Chorus (SFBC), directing the Intermediate chorus and supervising all tiers of the SFBC Training Chorus School. Together with Artistic Director Ian Robertson, Mrs. Clark worked closely with the Grammy Award winning San Francisco Symphony, the San Francisco Opera, the San Francisco Ballet, and conducted the chorus at the Grand Teton Music Festival. A highlight of her career was an invitation with the San Francisco Boys Chorus to sing at the inauguration of President Barack Obama in 2009. In addition to her work at SFBC, Mrs. Clark was on the faculty of the San Francisco Conservatory Pre-college Program, and she established an award-winning chorus during her tenure at the Hamlin School for Girls. Mrs. Clark earned her B.M. and M.M.E in Music Education from the Oberlin Conservatory and has studied choral conducting with Robert Shaw, Rodney Eichenberger, Henry Leck, and Doreen Rao.