Expanding Boundaries: Exploring Choral Cultures and Traditions

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Dr. Janet Galván has empowered and inspired choral conductors, choral singers, and educators nationally and internationally. She has contributed to the invigoration of the choral art through innovative programming, staging, rehearsal techniques, and choral conducting workshops at Ithaca College, where she was the Director of Choral Activities. Her singers are noted for creating a deep connection with audiences.

Sought after as a guest conductor of choral and orchestral ensembles, she has conducted professional and university orchestras including Virtuosi Pragenses, the Cayuga Chamber Orchestra, and the Madrid Chamber Orchestra in choral/orchestral performances. She has conducted national, divisional, and state choruses throughout the United States for the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA), the National Association for Music Educators (NAfME), and the Organization of American Kodály Educators (OAKE), and has conducted ensembles of all ages, from adult professional choirs to children’s choirs. She has conducted in venues such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, Washington’s Constitution Hall, Minneapolis’ Symphony Hall, Boston’s Symphony Hall, Pittsburgh’s Heinz Hall, Nashville’s Schermerhorn Symphony Center, and Dvorak Hall of Rudolfinum.

Her own choral ensembles have performed in Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, as well as in concert halls throughout Europe and Ireland. Galván was the sixth national honor choir conductor for ACDA and was the conductor of the North American Children’s Choir, which performed annually in Carnegie Hall for 10 years. She was also a guest conductor for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

Galván has been a guest conductor and clinician in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Brazil, and throughout Europe, as well as at national conferences and the World Symposium on Choral Music. She was on the faculty for the Carnegie Hall Choral Institute, the Transient Glory Symposium, and the Oberlin Conducting Institute. Galván was a member of the Grammy Award-winning Robert Shaw Festival Singers.

Galván has two choral music series with the Roger Dean Publishing Company and is the series advisor to Latin Accents, a series with Boosey & Hawkes. Additionally, she is the author of chapters in two books, Teaching Music through Performance in Choir, Volume 2 and The School Choral Program: Philosophy, Planning, Organizing and Teaching. Her article on the changing voice was published in the International Federation of Choral Music Journal in August 2007 and reprinted in La Circulare del Secretariat de Coral Infatils de Catalunga.

Galván has been recognized as one of the country’s leading conducting teachers, and her students have received first place awards, as well as being finalists, in both the graduate and undergraduate divisions of the American Choral Directors Association biennial National Choral Conducting Competition. Many of her former students are now conducting university and professional choirs. In addition, she has been an artist in residence at many universities, leading masterclasses, working with university choirs, and presenting sessions.