University of Toronto conductor to lead Intercollegiate Choral Festival

The School of Music will bring acclaimed University of Toronto conductor Dr. Hilary Apfelstadt to campus for its seventh annual Intercollegiate Choral Festival to be held on Saturday, Feb. 18, 4 p.m., in King Concert Hall.

Tickets are $5 for general public, free for students (with ID) and children, and are available at the Fredonia Ticket Office in the Williams Center, by phone at 716-673-3501, and online. Tickets will also be available at the door.

Each year, the festival brings an accomplished guest conductor and visiting collegiate choir to Fredonia for choral workshops with Fredonia's College Choir, Chamber Choir and Women's Choir, under the direction of Drs. Gerald Gray and Vernon Huff.

Dr. Apfelstadt, to be joined by the University of Toronto’s MacMillan Singers, will conduct the Fredonia choirs in several selections and then lead the MacMillan Singers. The combined choirs will join together for a rousing, not-to-be missed finale.

At the University of Toronto, Apfelstadt is Director of Choral Activities and Professor of Conducting and recipient of the inaugural Faculty Teaching Excellence Award winner in 2013. She holds the Elmer Iseler Chair in Conducting and is also Artistic Director of Exultate Chamber Singers, a semi-professional ensemble in Toronto.

Apfelstadt earned degrees from the University of Toronto, the University of Illinois and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She holds an ARCT in piano performance. Formerly Director of Choral Activities and Associate Director of the School of Music at Ohio State University, Apfelstadt has conducted choirs at divisional and national conferences of the American Choral Directors Association and conducted the University of Toronto MacMillan Singers at Podium 2012, the national conference of Choral Canada. She has led choral festivals in Europe and at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center in New York.

In 2009, she conducted the Mormon Tabernacle Choir in a live broadcast of “Music and the Spoken Word.” She has directed all-state choruses in 35 states and led the 2011 Ontario Youth Choir. She also conducted the 2014 National Youth Choir of Canada in an all-Canadian program in a tour of the Maritimes, culminating with a performance at Podium in Halifax, N.S.

For several years, Apfelstadt was a member of the Robert Shaw Festival Singers and recorded two GRAMMY award winning CDs with them in France.

She is a prolific author, having published multiple articles in professional journals, as well as several chapters in two books: “Wisdom, Wit and Will: Women Choral Conductors on their Art” and “Conducting Women’s Choirs: Strategies for Success.”

A member of the Editorial Board for the ACDA Choral Journal, Apfelstadt also writes a regular choral column for The Canadian Music Educator, the Canadian Music Educators Association journal. She is a frequent conference presenter and often does conducting master classes at various levels, including several university residencies.