Dr.
Christopher Gilliam serves as Associate Director of Choral Activities and
Associate Professor of
Voice
at Northwestern State University of Louisiana and is the recipient of the
School of Creative and
Performing
Arts Magale Professorship for 2010-2011. At NSU he teaches Concert Choir,
Northwestern Lyric (Women’s Chorus),
undergraduate and graduate Voice, and Choral Writing and
Arranging.
He completed the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Voice Performance and Master
of
Music
degree in Choral Conducting in May 2003 at the University of Kansas where he
studied voice
with
John Stephens and conducting with Simon Carrington.
As
a soloist he has sung over 20 leading roles in opera, oratorio, operetta and
musicals in well over
100
performances. A member of the Simon Carrington Chamber Singers, Gilliam sang
the role of
Historicus
in Charpentier’s oratorio Le Reniement de
Saint Pierre for their inaugural concert tour in
Missouri
and Kansas. In Feburary 2010, he was the soloist for Louisiana Tech
University’s
performance
of Carmina Burana, and he continues
to be an active free lance soloist throughout the
state.
This summer Gilliam will sing with Dale Warland and the Dale Warland Festival
Singers at the
Minnesota
Beethoven Music Festival.
As
a conductor, Gilliam has worked and studied with some of the most recognized
names in choral
music.
He is an active vocal and choral clinician and has adjudicated and conducted
for All-State and
Honor
Choir festivals in Illinois, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Kansas, Louisiana, Ohio,
North Carolina and
South
Carolina. His choirs have taken tours across the United States and have been
featured in ACDA
Intercollegiate
Choral Festivals and as the demonstration choir for state ACDA conventions. In
April
2010,
he led the Northwestern State University
International Chorale on its inaugural overseas tour to
England,
performing in the country’s well-know and historic cathedrals in London,
Oxford, Ely and
Bath.
A
specialist in vocal pedagogy with an emphasis on technique for the choral
musician, Gilliam is
currently
pursuing certification from the McClosky Institute of Voice. He is a published
composer of
several
sacred vocal solos as well as an orchestrated choral octavo which made the
SoundForth Press
Top Five Best
Seller’s List
for 2009. He is a member of the National Association of Teachers of Singing
(NATS),
American Choral Directors Association (ACDA), The National Association for
Music
Education
(MENC), the College Music Society (CMS), Intercollegiate Men’s Chorus
Association (IMC),
and
is an elected member of Pi Kappa Lambda,
the national music honor society.
