About Our Conductors

• Kimberly Dunn Adams, Choral Director (on leave 2009-2010)
  
• Miguel Felipe, Interim Choral Director and Visiting Lecturer in Music

Miguel Felipe was appointed Interim Choral Director and Visiting Lecturer in Music at Mount Holyoke College in 2009. Dr. Felipe is also serves as Associate Director of Choral Studies at The Boston Conservatory, Music Director of the Boston Choral Ensemble, and Assistant Conductor of the Harvard-Radcliffe Collegium Musicum at Harvard University. He has conducted choirs at the University of Cincinnati, Boston University, The Boston Conservatory, Brown University, and Harvard University. He has led community choirs in Maine, Massachusetts, and Ohio, and has served as a clinician and adjudicator throughout the Northeast US and in Southeast Asia.

Felipe studied at the prestigious Interlochen Arts Academy where earned a diploma in piano. Later, he graduated from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music where he earned a Bachelor of Music, summa cum laude. After relocating to Boston, Felipe attended the Pierre Monteux School and studied conducting at Boston University where he earned his graduate degrees studying with Dr. Ann Howard Jones, David Hoose, Craig Smith, and Joseph Flummerfelt.

As a performer, Felipe advocates for new music and has commissioned and premiered dozens of works for chamber orchestra; wind ensemble; women’s, men’s, and mixed chorus. In 2007 Felipe established—and continues to direct—the Boston Choral Ensemble Commission Competition: the Northeast’s largest choral commissioning project of its kind. As a researcher and teacher, Felipe’s research interests focus on choral innovations in Indonesia, choral societies as influences in cultural development, and conducting pedagogy.

Felipe is a member of the American Choral Directors Association, Chorus America, the National Collegiate Choral Organization, the International Federation for Choral Music, and Pi Kappa Lambda.

For more information, please visit MiguelFelipe.com.

Kimberly Dunn Adams joined the Mount Holyoke College Faculty in 2006 and is currently on leave for the 2009-2010 school year. She conducts the Glee Club, the Chorale, and the Chamber Singers. She also teaches conducting and sings with the Faculty Baroque Ensemble.

Ms. Adams received her Master of Music degree in Choral Conducting from the Yale School of Music, where she studied with Marguerite Brooks and Simon Carrington. She also holds both a Bachelor of Arts in Religion from Oberlin College and a Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance from Oberlin Conservatory. She is currently pursuing her D.M.A. in Choral Conducting at the University of Wisconsin-Madison under Beverly Taylor.

In 2005, Ms. Adams took Second Prize at the American Choral Directors Association National Conducting Competition, Graduate Division. In 2004, Ms. Adams was a fellow in orchestral conducting at the Conductor's Institute at the University of South Carolina. She has also received various academic awards, including the Lorna Wendt Distinguished Doctoral Fellowship at the University of Wisconsin, as well as several prizes from the Yale Institute of Sacred Music and Oberlin College.

Ms. Adams has previously served as conductor of the UW-Madison Masters Singers, Yale Marquand Chapel Choir, Yale Repertory Chorus, Yale Recital Chorus, and Oberlin Women's Choir. In addition, she has acted as Assistant Conductor for the Yale Camerata in New Haven, the Choral Union in Madison, and most recently, the University of Wisconsin Opera Department production of Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro. In her free time, she performs as both Soprano and Mezzo-soprano soloist with various ensembles.

About Our Assistant Conductor

Beckie Markarian was appointed Assistant to the Director of Choral Ensembles at Mount Holyoke College in 2009. Markarian graduated from Mount Holyoke in 2007 as a Music and Psychology double major. She began her studies at Mount Holyoke as a flute/piccolo player studying under Adrianne Greenbaum, performing with the Orchestra (serving as the Social Chair, Manager and President), Flute Choir, Klezmer Ensemble and various wind quintets. She was selected to perform as a soloist with the MHC Orchestra for Doppler’s Andante and Allegro (2005) and Vivaldi’s Piccolo Concerto (2007) and performed in the debut of Five Things by Eve Beglarian (2005.) Markarian also pursued vocal studies while at Mount Holyoke, performing with the Glee Club and Chamber Singers, and serving as the Alto 2 section leader. Markarian was the recipient of the Dorothy Chancellor Currey Scholarship, the Music Department Prize, and the Helen Blyth Hazen Music Prize II.

After graduating from Mount Holyoke College Markarian has continued to perform as a local musician, working with The Commonwealth Opera, The Exit 7 Players, the Amherst Choral Society and the South Hadley Chorale. She has guest conducted with the Center Church choir, directed the Mount Holyoke Handbell Choir, and served as Choral Assistant to Catherine Melhorn with the South Hadley’s Children’s Choir in 2007.