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Directors Circle


Jan 3, 2020

This podcast episode features my interview with Dr. Christopher Kiver. Dr. Kiver is the Director of Choral Activities at Penn State University where he directs the concert choir and glee club. In addition to discussing the importance of music and quality repertoire, Dr. Kiver also gives insight into the role that gender plays in a comprehensive music program.

 

Topics include:

(02:57) Kiver talks about his life and background as starting out as an instrumentalist

(05:27) The differences between music education in the USA and the UK 

(30:03) What constitutes quality repertoire

(38:40) The role of classical music in a comprehensive music program

(43:19) The role gender plays in a music program

(58:17) Favorite rehearsal tactics

(1:00:00) Why do we teach music? 

(1:02:01) Kiver discusses leaders that have made an impact on his life 

(1:06:57) Advice for music educators

 

Links: 

Kivers’s Penn State Page: https://music.psu.edu/faculty/christopher-kiver

Kiver conducting the Penn State Concert Choir: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpozk4UG9fM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpBJTPAI_yM

Kiver conducting the 2011 PMEA All State Choir: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4e_2sAVIFzA

 

Bio: 

Christopher Kiver conducts the Concert Choir and Glee Club, oversees the graduate choral conducting program, and teaches classes in choral conducting and choral literature. He is founder and director of The Orpheus Singers and serves as Director of Music at the University Baptist and Brethren Church in State College. Kiver is a graduate of the University of London, Florida State University and the University of Michigan where he received the D.M.A. in choral conducting.  

Choirs under Kiver’s direction have performed at state and regional conventions of the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA) and National Association for Music Education. He has taught at the Westminster Choir College Summer and Saturday Seminar programs, and appeared as a guest conductor, clinician and adjudicator in the United States, Australia, China, and New Zealand.

Kiver is national chair for the Repertoire and Standards Committee on Male Choirs for the American Choral Directors Association, and a past-president of the Pennsylvania chapter of ACDA.

A native of England, he has received numerous prizes and scholarships including a Fulbright Award, and the 2002 Sydney World Symposium Foundation Scholarship. In 2006, he was a double Grammy Award winner ("Best Choral Performance" and "Best Classical Album") as a chorus master for the critically acclaimed Naxos recording of William Bolcom’s monumental Songs of Innocence and of Experience. Kiver was the recipient of Penn State's "President’s Award for Engagement with Students" in 2017.