Michigan Music Conference
The purpose of the Michigan Music Conference is to provide an annual in-service opportunity for the professional development of Michigan music educators and to serve as a coordinating body for collaborative, inter-association initiatives in support of school music in Michigan.
Headliners
Dr. Lynn M. Brinckmeyer is Professor of Music, Associate Director of the School of Music and Director of Choral Music Education at Texas State University. During 2006-2008 she served as President for The National Association for Music Education (formerly MENC). Other past offices include: President for the Northwest Division of MENC, Music Educators Journal Editorial Board, and Washington Music Educators Association General Music Curriculum Chair. In addition to chairing the Eastern Washington University Music Department for six years and conducting the EWU Concert Choir, Dr. Brinckmeyer received the Washington Music Educators Association Hall of Fame, the MENC Northwest Division Distinguished Service Award and Eastern New Mexico University’s Outstanding Alumni Award. Dr. Brinckmeyer recently published Rhythm Rescue! and Wander the World with Warm-ups with Hal Leonard Publishing and Advocate for Music with Oxford University Press. She founded the Eastern Washington University Girls’ Chorus while teaching at EWU. She also served as Artistic Director for the South Hill Children’s Chorus in Spokane, Washington. Dr. Brinckmeyer is a co-founder and Artistic Director for the Hill Country Youth Chorus in San Marcos, Texas. Dr. Brinckmeyer’s degrees include a Bachelor of Science in Education and Master of Music Education from Eastern New Mexico University, and a Ph.D. in Music Education from The University of Kansas. In New Mexico she taught elementary music and middle school choir, then moved to higher education in the Pacific Northwest. At Texas State University Dr. Brinckmeyer teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in choral music education and she directs the Texas State Women’s Choir. Each summer Dr. Brinckmeyer teaches classes for Will Schmid’s World Music Drumming workshops and supervises the choral curriculum and video content for Musician’s Toolkit. She has conducted all state choirs and honor choirs, lectured, presented master classes and performed in forty-nine states in the United States and twenty different countries, including China, Brazil, South Africa, Cuba and Peru.
Nationally recognized as a leader in the choral field, Ms. Ellsworth has served as Artistic Director of ANIMA - Young Singers of Greater Chicago since 1996; she has also served as Lecturer in Choral Conducting at the Bienen School of Music, Northwestern University, conducting the mixed undergraduate ensemble, University Singers. Under her direction, ANIMA has won several national awards, including the once-in-an-organizational lifetime Margaret Hillis Award for Choral Excellence from Chorus America (2008), the 2009 Dale Warland Singers Commission Award jointly given by the American Composers Forum and Chorus America, the 2013 and 2001 ASCAP award for adventurous programming, and the 2000 U.S. Library of Congress’ Local Legacies Award, acknowledging ANIMA as one of the nation’s cultural treasures. In 2010, she was inducted as an Honorary National Member into the Sigma Alpha Iota music fraternity. Ms. Ellsworth has served several times as a member of the music panel for the National Endowment for the Arts, and is the advisor for the Opera Workshop choral series with Boosey & Hawkes. She has over 25 years of singing and teaching experience on the music faculties of the College of DuPage in Illinois, St. Andrews University in North Carolina, and the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. She has served on the music faculty of Doreen Rao’s Choral Music Experience Institute for Choral Teacher Training, and received the Artist Teacher certificate from the Institute in 1995. In great demand as a guest clinician and conductor, Ms. Ellsworth has conducted all-state choirs and festivals in over 30 states, as well as for the Northwest, North Central, and Southwest divisions of ACDA. In February, 2019 she is honored to be conducting the national children’s honor choir for ACDA’s 60 th Anniversary National Conference in Kansas City. Her work with ANIMA has been featured on national conferences of ACDA, OAKE, and Chorus America. Under some of the world’s finest conductors, including Esa Pekka Salonen, James Conlon, Christoph Aeschenbach, Claudio Abbado, Charles Dutoit, and Georg Solti, she has prepared youth choruses for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Berlin Philharmonic, Grant Park Symphony, Music of the Baroque, Chicago Sinfonietta, and many others. Ms. Ellsworth has led ANIMA on concert tours to six continents, and has served as guest conductor at Carnegie and Avery Fisher Halls, and abroad in Ireland, Scotland, England, Hong Kong, Brazil, and the Cayman Islands. Ms. Ellsworth is indebted to her two primary choral mentors, Dr. Dale Warland and Dr. Doreen Rao. She is the proud mother of two very musical children: Robin Kesselman, Principal Bass of the Houston Symphony and Lindsay Kesselman, professional soprano. |
Dr. Lynn M. Brinckmeyer
Emily Ellsworth
As innovative leaders in vocal music education, we provide experiences to inspire our diverse community.
Our vision is to reach the hearts of all people through song.
The MSVMA Offices are located in the Timme Building on the campus of Ferris State University, Big Rapids, Michigan.