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Kristina
Boerger received her formative musical training from pianist
Annie Sherter and holds the doctorate in choral conducting and
literature from the University of Illinois.
She has directed choirs in the public schools of
Wisconsin and Illinois and served on the faculties of Lake
Forest College and the Millikin University School of Music. Based in New York City since 2000, she now divides her
professional activities among three principal loves: choral conducting, ensemble singing, and academic teaching.
Selected
as the 2008 Outstanding Choral Director of the Year by the New
York State chapter of the American Choral Directors Association,
Dr.
Boerger is in her ninth season as Artistic Director of
Manhattan's Cerddorion Vocal
Ensemble,
with which group she has commissioned works from several New
York composers. Having served for two years as Music Director of
New York's AMUSE,
she was recently appointed Associate Conductor of the Collegiate
Chorale.
Boerger has appeared as guest conductor at the invitation of the
Chicago Children's Choir, the
Kalamazoo Bach Festival,
the University of Illinois Chamber Singers, the Schola Cantorum of
Syracuse,
the
Christopher Caines Dance Company,
and Alarm Will Sound. She has also served as guest conductor,
adjudicator, and clinician in several U.S. cities, in Quebec
City, and in Mar del Plata, Argentina.
Boerger's
work as Founding Director (1990-1999) of AMASONG:
Champaign-Urbana's Premier Lesbian/Feminist Chorus is the
subject of Jay Rosenstein's acclaimed documentary, The AMASONG
Chorus: Singing Out,
produced with grants from the Corporation for Public
Broadcasting and the Independent Television Service. The film
has toured festivals worldwide and enjoyed repeated local PBS
broadcasts since its national broadcast debut in June of 2004.
With AMASONG, Boerger directed and produced two
award-winning recordings (Over Here the Water is Sweet,
1998 GLAMA for Best Choral Performance; and Amai, 2000
GLAMAs for Best Classical Composition and Best Choral
Performance), performed at several national venues, and toured
the Czech Republic.
As
a singer in a variety of styles, Boerger is a member of the
early-music ensemble Pomerium
and of The Western Wind
a cappella sextet, also concertizing regularly with the Vox Vocal
Ensemble. Other recording credits include projects with Early
Music New York, Bobby McFerrin, Rocky Maffit, and Pan Morigan.
She has enjoyed guest appearances with The King's Noyse, the
Tallis Scholars, and Urban Bush Women. In the 2006 season at the
BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music) Harvey Theater, she appeared in
the critically acclaimed run of Sir Jonathan Miller’s
semi-staged production of J.S. Bach’s Saint Matthew Passion.
Dr.
Boerger lectures in music history at Barnard
College,
also serving as academic adviser to first-year and sophomore
students. She is
the instructor of the undergraduate and graduate courses in
choral conducting at the Manhattan School of
Music.
She has also co-taught a summer graduate course at
Columbia University comparing oral and written musical and
literary forms as consolidators of cultural identity. Dr. Boerger has been invited to speak on the topic of her
dissertation,
Whose Music Is it, Anyway? Black Vocal Ensemble Traditions
and the Feminist Choral Movement: Performance Practice as
Politics. This study explores racial and gender identity
formation through choral performance and examines the effects of
racism on White and Black performers' beliefs about
authenticity, ownership, and theft of oral-tradition materials.
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