Speakers & Performers

Valerina Hilton

Valerina graduated from the University of California, Santa Cruz and majored in both Psychology and Community Studies, with a minor in Education. Valerina is a Kindergarten teacher at La Escuelita Elementary in Oakland Unified School District and has worked in education with children for 20...

Karen Hopper

Karen is the Associate Director of Performance Strategy at Razorfish, where she helps Fortune 100 clients make smart decisions about their marketing creative using data.

Prior to joining Razorfish in 2021, Karen spent a decade building successful digital marketing and fundraising...

Susan Howlett

Susan Howlett has been strengthening nonprofit boards for over 45 years, as a trustee, an executive director, and a consultant to thousands of organizations large and small. Author of two award-winning books (Getting Funded and Boards on Fire...

Cristine Kelly

Cristine Kelly is the Principal of Fix Creative- a California-based boutique management consultancy serving mission-driven organizations. The firm focuses on interim management, leadership transition, strategic planning, organizational design, and fund development.

Cristine founded Fix...

Lori V. Keyne

Lori Keyne has been a music instructor in higher education for over 20 years. She received her DMA in choral conducting at the University of Arizona in 1992. She currently resides in Bisbee, Arizona and teaches at Cochise College, located near the U.S./Mexico Border. She has taught there for 17...

Shawn Kirchner

Shawn Kirchner is a composer, arranger, and songwriter based in Los Angeles whose choral works are performed throughout the world. His long creative relationship with the LA Master Chorale and Artistic Director Grant Gershon culminated in his tenure as the ensemble’s Composer in Residence from...

Robert Kyr

Robert Kyr is a composer, writer, photographer, filmmaker, and intermedia artist. He has composed twelve symphonies, three chamber symphonies, three violin concerti, a piano concerto, chamber music, and more than 100 works for vocal ensembles of all types, including motet cycles, cantatas,...

Michael Kreuzer

Michael Kreuzer was born in Montreal, QC, to a Dine (Navajo) father and a German-Jewish mother. Most of his childhood and youth he spent in Frankfurt/Germany, where he attended medical school.

As a child he had piano and later voice lessons. He was a child actor/extra at the...

Mitch Menchaca

Mitch Menchaca was appointed as the executive director for the City of Phoenix Office of Arts and Culture in 2018. An Arizona native, he relocated from Phoenix to Washington, D.C., in 2009 to lead the Local Arts Advancement Department at Americans for the Arts, where he guided a team of...

Marcela Molina

Dr. Molina has been affiliated with the Tucson Girls Chorus since 2006, first serving as Artistic Director and taking the helm as Executive Director in 2011. Under Dr. Molina’s guidance, the Tucson Girls Chorus has grown significantly in programming and community engagement. With her leadership...

Wendy Moy

Dr. Wendy K. Moy is the Co-Artistic Director/Co-Founder of Chorosynthesis Singers and Assistant Professor of Music Education at Syracuse University, where she teaches rehearsal techniques, choral literature, conducting, and directs the treble chorus. Under her co-direction, Chorosynthesis...

Baker L. Purdon

Baker Purdon is a Ph.D. Student in Music Education and Choral Conducting at Temple University, where he was awarded a University Fellowship. While at Temple, Baker was awarded the 2022 Presser Foundation Graduate Music Award, which enabled him to record his debut album, Walking Through the...

Phil Rydeen

Phil Rydeen has been a music educator and administrator for three decades, supporting the creative lives of Oakland Unified School District students. As the Director of Visual and Performing Arts, he has been responsible for rebuilding visual and performing arts programs and moving the OUSD...

Mukta Sambrani

Mukta Sambrani is a lifelong learner, writer, and a committed educator. She has been a teacher and an administrator focused on rigor, excellence, and equity. She brings deep coaching experience focused on high-quality instruction, equity and restorative justice.

Mukta believes that...

Rebecca Seeman

Dr. Rebecca Petra Naomi Seeman is a conductor, music educator, and nonprofit leader. She is the Interim Director of UC Choral Ensembles at UC Berkeley, where she conducts the UC Alumni Chorus and the Cal Chorale and advises several student-led ensembles. She is a faculty member in the Performing...

Jeremiah Selvey

Jeremiah Selvey is professor of music and director of choral activities at Santa Monica College, co-directs Chorosynthesis Singers and adjudicates for the collegiate choral performance and professional choral composition categories of The American Prize. He has led several choruses in...

G. Phillip Shoultz, III

Known for his innovative pedagogy and ability to inspire singers of all ages, G. Phillip Shoultz, III, enjoys a multifaceted career as conductor, educator, singer, and speaker. Phillip is Associate Conductor and Director of Learning, Engagement, and Community Programs for VocalEssence, where he...

Jayson Smart

Jayson Smart (he/him/his) joined Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies (MACP) in April 2018 as program director for the Arts & Cultures domain. In this role, Jayson oversees the domain program team in building, managing, and evaluating effective grantmaking programs in the areas of Music...

Steven F. Smith

Steve Smith leads transformative change for performing arts organizations. As President of Berkshire Choral International, he is overseeing a strategic revitalization of the organization with particular focus on program innovation, artistic planning and collaboration, and enrollment marketing....

Sarah Kirkland Snider

Composer Sarah Kirkland Snider writes music of direct expression and vivid narrative that has been hailed as “rapturous” (The New York Times), “groundbreaking” (The Boston Globe), and “poignant, deeply personal” (The New Yorker). Recently named one of the “Top 35 Female Composers in Classical...

Conway Tan-Gregory

Conway Tan-Gregory started with Cantare in 2014, teaching classroom music and directing after-school choirs. He now oversees the organization’s Classroom Music Education Program.

Conway earned a Master’s in Music Education with an emphasis on Kodály methodology from Holy Names University...

Jerod Impichchaachaaha' Tate

Jerod Impichcha̱achaaha' Tate is a classical composer, citizen of the Chickasaw Nation in Oklahoma, and is dedicated to the development of American Indian classical composition. The Washington Post selected him as one of “22 for ’22: Composers and performers to watch this year” and raved about...

Brian Tracey

Brian Tracey is the executive director of the Bluefield Arts and Revitalization Corporation (BARC), a non-profit organization whose purpose is to use the arts to create opportunities for education, employment, and entertainment in downtown Bluefield, West Virginia.

Previously, Mr. Tracey...

Dale Trumbore

Dale Trumbore is a Los Angeles-based composer and writer whose music has been called "devastatingly beautiful" (The Washington Post) and praised for its "soaring melodies and beguiling harmonies deployed with finesse" (The New York Times). Trumbore's compositions have been performed widely in...