Geoffrey Boers

Geoffrey Boers is Director of Choral Activities and the Ruth Waters Professor of Music at the University of Washington in Seattle, where he leads a program widely recognized as innovative, vibrant, and forward thinking. Under his direction, the graduate choral program has developed a singular mission: to nurture the whole student as conductor-teacher- scholar-servant-leader. Through his teaching he is exploring the evolution of conducting gesture and rehearsal pedagogy and their connection with the emerging neuroscience of mirror neurons, empathy, perception, learning, and personal transformation. His work has led to new thoughts about conducting and teaching with regard to breath, movement, artistry, personal awareness, and cultural development.

His focus on holistic learning has led him to develop mentorship groups for local cohorts of music educators across the United States and Canada. Most recently, he has created the Choral Literacies and Skills rubric, which is a system for development of choral musicianship, assessment, adjudication, and repertoire grading. The CLaS rubric has been adopted by National Association of Music Educators, NAfME, and Choral Canada as the national standard for choral music classes across North America. This spring in Montreal, Geoffrey will lead an unprecedented meeting of the Executive Directors of these two organizations, along with American Choral Directors Association, ACDA, and National Association for Teachers of Singing, NATS. These organization are collaborating for the first-time ever, in support of CLaS for all choral teachers as a wa y to modernize pedagogy across North America. These resources can be found at CLaSResources.com.

As a conductor and teacher, Geoffrey maintains an active schedule of concerts, workshops, clinics, and master classes. He has conducted in many of the major concert halls across the United States and Canada, as well as concerts in Europe, Asia and Australia. He has the opportunity to work with thousands of singers of all ages and diverse cultures each year. He is well-known for innovative programming and finding ways to make choral performances meaningful and transformative to modern audiences. In the summer of 2020, Geoffrey was asked to speak on this topic at the World Symposium of Choral Music in Auckland, New Zealand.

Geoffrey conducts the UW Chamber Singers, a choir of graduate and advanced undergraduate music majors studying choral conducting, vocal performance, music education, as well as many students from programs across campus. The choir is noted for its vocal agility, varied color, and expressivity, and have been featured at many festivals, conventions, and workshops, including NWACDA, Musicfest Canada, and at the national conventions of the American Kodaly Educators, National Association of Schools of Music, and American Musicological Society. The choir can be heard on their most recent CD, …behold again, the stars on Centaur Records.

Geoffrey also conducts the Symphony Tacoma Voices, a choir consisting of professional singers, music educators, as well as amateur singers from across all walks of life in the south Puget Sound region.

University of Washington Chamber Singers

The University of Washington Chamber Singers is the UW’s longest-standing choral organization, formed in the early 1930s. The group flourished and gained international recognition under the leadership of its conductors Gerald Kechley, Rodney Eichenberger, and Joan Conlon. The current Chamber Singers consists of graduate and advanced undergraduate music majors studying choral conducting, vocal performance, music education, as well as many students from programs across campus. They have been featured at many festivals, conventions, and workshops, including NWACDA, Musicfest Canada, and at the national conventions of the American Kodaly Educators, National Association of Schools of Music, and American Musicological Society.

In relationship with the UW’s nationally recognized Baltic Studies program and Baltic Choral Collection, the Chamber Singers have travelled to the Baltic five times, and will return again in 2019. The choir has just released its first professionally produced CD …behold again, the stars on Centaur Records.

Symphony Tacoma Voices

The 70-member Symphony Tacoma Voices has a long and proud history as part of the Symphony Tacoma organization. The choir consists of professional singers, music educators, as well as amateur singers from across all walks of life in the south Puget Sound region. Our choir, ranging in age from 16 to 86 represents the best of what arts can do for people in a community. Amateur means to work at something one loves. This work then is reflected not only in our energetic and inspiring Monday night rehearsals, but in our volunteerism, our fund raising and support for the orchestra, our visibility in the community and our international travel. Under the leadership of Geoffrey Boers, the choir has toured to China, Italy, Germany, the Czech Republic, Austria, Croatia, and Bosnia.