Christopher Shepard, Artistic Director

Christopher ShepardIn addition to celebrating its 150th Anniversary Season in 20009-20120, The Worcester Chorus welcomed Christopher Shepard in his inaugural season as Artistic Director.  

Founding conductor of the Sydneian Bach Choir and Orchestra from 2001 to 2008, Chris was the music director of BACH 2010, a project to perform all of Bach's choral cantatas. Under his direction, the ensemble performed over seventy-five cantatas, as well as the two Passions, B-Minor Mass, and Christmas Oratorio.  A Sydney reveiwer wrote of the cantata series that "these well-attended events, using a fine choir and perceptive soloists, are high points in our musical terrain."  Resident in Sydney for over a decade, Chris also served as Director of Music at Sydney Grammar School, one of Australia's most prominent high schools.

Before moving to Sydney, Chris led the choral program at the Taft School in Connecticut, where his Collegium Musicum appeared at the 1994 ACDA Eastern Division convention. While teaching at Taft, he conducted many choirs and orchestras in Connecticut, including the Greater Middletown Chorale and Waterbury Chorale, and the Stamford MasterSingers. The Litchfield County Children's Choir, which he founded in 1990, continues to thrive after nearly two decades. Since 2004, Chris has served as Music Director of the Hotchkiss Summer Portals Chamber Music Program, an intensive chamber music program for advanced young players and singers from around the world. He conducts the chamber orchestra and choir, serving on the faculty alongside such guest ensembles as the Tokyo String Quartet, the Shanghai Quartet, and the Philadelphia Singers. In February 2009, Chris was guest conductor at Emmanuel Church in Boston, a church renowned for its three-decade Bach cantata project.

Apart from his work with the music of J.S.Bach, Chris has conducted a number of major choral-orchestral works, including Brahms' German Requiem, Bernstein's Chichester Psalms, Orff's Carmina Burana, the Haydn Lord Nelson Mass, Britten's Saint Nicolas, Mozart's Requiem and C Minor Mass, Handel's Judas Maccabeus, the Faure Requiem, and Monteverdi's Vespers. With SBS-TV, one of Australia's two national public television networks, Chris presented two documentaries, on Bernstein's Chichester Psalms and From Mozart to Morrison with eminent Australian jazz musician James Morrison. He has commissioned new works from many composers, including Gwyneth Walker, Erik Nielsen, Amy Bernon, Richard Charltoon, Anna Jacobs, and Daniel Rojas.

A committed educator for more than two decades, Chris taught the conducting course in the New South Wales Kodaly Institute for more than a decade, and presented workshops and lectures for a number of key music organizations in Australia.  He has also given presentations for the American Choral Directors Association and conducted several high schools' regional festival choirs in New England. In 2000, Chris was chorusmaster with the Sydney Philharmonia Choirs for their performance in the Olympics Opening Ceremony.

Christopher Shepard holds a bachelor degree from the Hartt School and a master's degree from the Yale School of Music, where he studied choral conducting with Marguerite Brooks.  He is currently pursuing a PhD. in Musicology at the University of Sydney, researching the performance history of Bach's B Minor Mass in 20th Century America.