ABOUT
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Dr. James M. Meaders is currently Artistic and Educational Consultant with Distinguished Concerts International New York (DCINY) and a free-lance conductor and voice teacher in the United Kingdom. Meaders moved to New York in July 2014 to accept a position with DCINY after 16 years on faculty at Mississippi College. As Professor and Director of Choral Activities in the Department of Music at MC, Dr. Meaders’ choirs performed multiple invitational performances for conventions of the American Choral Directors Association at the state, divisional, and national level. He led the Mississippi College Singers on four international tours and concerts in such venerable venues as Washington National Cathedral, St. Peter’s, Vienna, Canterbury Cathedral, Lincoln Center, and Carnegie Hall. He has also presented multiple sessions on varied choral topics to state and divisional ACDA conventions. In February 2015, Meaders, along with Dr. Alicia Walker from the University of South Carolina, presented a session on the integration of service learning and music education for national ACDA in Salt Lake City, Utah. He will present a session on rehearsal technique to the annual convention of the Association of British Choral Directors in Glasgow, Scotland in August, 2017.
Dr. Meaders appeared as a guest conductor with DCINY on many occasions, with credits including Rene Clausen’s Memorial, Rutter’s Mass of the Children, and Leonard Bernstein’s, Chichester Psalms. In 2014, Meaders, in collaboration with the Distinguished Concerts Orchestra and Distinguished Concerts Singers International conducted the New York premiere of Requiem for the Living by Dan Forrest. Recent conducting engagements include a reprise of Requiem for the Living in January 2016 and Ola Gjeilo’s Sunrise Mass in March 2016, both at Carnegie Hall. Meaders was honored to conduct the New York premiere of Kim Arnesen’s Requiem in January 2017 at Carnegie Hall, followed up by a collaboration with Norwegian composer, Ola Gjeilo, at David Geffen Hall, Lincoln Center in June 2017. Dr. Meaders has taught undergraduate and graduate conducting, applied voice, and chaired a university department of music. He facilitates and serves on the faculty of DCINY’s annual Conductors’ Mentoring Workshop, held each January in New York City. He was a practicing church musician for more than 25 years before moving to New York and has conducted community choirs, numerous honor choirs, and many festivals. Dr. Meaders, in partnership with several US choral colleagues, created The International Partnership for Choral Music Education, an annual service learning-based conducting symposium in Johannesburg, South Africa, that is dedicated to promoting the development of the choral arts of South Africa. He is past-president of Mississippi ACDA and has served as College and University R&S Chair for Southern Division ACDA. He will present a session on rehearsal technique to the annual convention of the Association of British Choral Directors in Glasgow, Scotland in August, 2017. | ||