Stanley J. Thurston

Stanley J. Thurston is the founding Artistic Director of The Heritage Signature Chorale. He has appeared as conductor in concert venues including Carnegie Hall, The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Concert Hall, U.S. Capitol; Music Center at Strathmore, Carter Barron Amphitheater; DAR Constitution Hall; Arena Stage; Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, University of Maryland; Washington Hebrew Congregation; Washington National Cathedral; and the Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, in Baltimore, MD. He has appeared as guest conductor with the Alexandria Symphony Orchestra, Soulful Symphony, Columbus Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Civic Symphony, Prince Georges Philharmonic, Washington Symphony Orchestra, and National Symphony Orchestra. Choruses under his direction have performed with the National Symphony Orchestra, Alexandria Symphony Orchestra, Annapolis Symphony Orchestra, Washington Symphony Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Baltimore Festival Orchestra, Joffrey Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet, and the Royal Ballet. Guest director appearances have included Choral Arts Society of Washington, Cathedral Choral Society, In Series Opera and Opera Americana. Mr. Thurston is well known as a pianist, composer, and arranger. His orchestral arrangements have been performed by the symphony orchestras of Baltimore, New Jersey, as well as by the National Symphony Orchestra. He has appeared, as conductor, with such well-known artists as Denyce Graves, Kathleen Battle, Jessye Norman, the Canadian Brass, Dionne Warwick, Sweet Honey in the Rock, gospel greats Walter Hawkins and the Wynan Brothers, and jazz legends Ramsey Lewis and Wynton Marsalis. He has appeared on NBC’s Today Show and BET, Black Entertainment Television. He served as music director for the Washington Performing Arts Of Thee We Sing concert/telecast, commemorating the 75th Anniversary of Marian Anderson’s historic concert at the Lincoln Memorial. He also served as a Panelist for the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities, was guest conductor with the Choral Arts Society of Washington’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Tribute Concert, and was commissioned by the 2009 Presidential Inaugural Committee to compose and conduct a special musical tribute for President Obama’s National Prayer Service at the Washington National Cathedral. He was guest conductor with the Reston Community Orchestra’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Annual Concert, was principal music coordinator, director and conductor for the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture Groundbreaking Ceremony, and conductor for premiere performances of Ysaye M. Barnwell’s Fortune’s Bones: The Manumission Requiem.

A graduate of the American Academy of Conducting at Aspen, he made his European opera conducting debut in Verdi’s La Traviata with Romania’s Opera Constanta, and returned to conduct Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor. His 2014-15 Washington, DC opera conducting included Puccini’s Tosca, Bellini’s La Sonnambula and Mozart’s Don Giovanni. Subsequent conducting assignments with the IN Series included Beethoven’s Fidelio, Copland’s The Tender Land, Mozart’s La Clemenza di Tito, Die Zauberflöte & Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Berlioz’s L’enfance du Christ, and R. Nathaniel Dett’s The Ordering of Moses. Previous positions have included Music Director of the National Symphony Orchestra’s NSO In Your Neighborhood concert series, Choirmaster, Sixth Presbyterian Church; Interim Music Director of National City Christian Church; Music Director for The Gospel at Colonus, Georgetown University; Minister of Music, First Baptist Church, Washington, D.C.; Principal Conductor of the Municipal Opera Company of Baltimore; and guest clinician for D.C. Commission on the Arts “D.C. Choral Masterpieces” workshop. On March 19, 2018 he conducted The Heritage Signature Chorale’s debut performance at Carnegie Hall with the New England Symphonic Ensemble, and in 2019 Mr. Thurston led the 250-voice Choir performing Beethoven’s 9th Symphony with the National Symphony Orchestra for the opening of the REACH at The Kennedy Center. 

He is currently Artist-in-Residence at Washington National Cathedral, Artistic Director Emeritus of the Washington Performing Arts Choirs, Director of Music and Worship Arts at Foundry United Methodist Church, Washington, D.C.; and Artistic Partner in the Cathedral Choral Society and the Heritage Signature Chorale’s I, Too, Sing America Project, a journey to build a more equitable and connected musical community, highlighting the contemporary and historical contributions African Americans have made to America’s musical culture.