Conductor Profiles
Student Conductors
At Lake Forest College, student conductors can experiment with leadership style and gestural technique in front of any ensemble. Recent student conductors have included:
- Molly Auer, ‘09
- Meg Golembiewski, ‘10
- Mariana Garciagodoy, ‘11
- Dave Hegge, ‘14
- Ryan Meadors, ‘12
- Billy Vaughan, ‘13
Leadership matters. Under the direction of outstanding conductors, the Lake Forest College Choirs have made a name for themselves, on campus and throughout the community.
Emilie Amrein is Assistant Professor of Music at Lake Forest College where she conducts the Lake Forest College Concert Choir and Women’s Chorus and teaches courses in music history, musicianship, music fundamentals, and first year studies. A native of Fort Wayne, Indiana, she holds degrees from the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University (B.S. in Music and Italian, 2001), the University of Arizona (M.M. in Choral Conducting, 2003), and the University of Minnesota (D.M.A. in Conducting, 2008). She has studied conducting with Kathy Saltzman Romey, Matthew Mehaffey, Craig Kirchhoff, Jeffrey Stirling, Bruce Chamberlain, and Michael Schwartzkopf.
As an author, Professor Amrein has contributed to Wisdom, Wit, and Will: Women Choral Conductors on Their Art and to volumes two and three of Teaching Music Through Performance in Choir. She has presented scholarship at the National Convention of the American Choral Director’s Association (2009), the National Service-Learning Conference of the National Youth Leadership Council (2008), the North Central Division Convention of the American Choral Conductor’s Association (2007), and the national meeting of the Group for Early Modern Cultural Studies (2007). Her teaching interests include community engagement through choral programming, interdisciplinary studies, service learning, and cultural criticism.
Dr. Amrein is the Artistic Director of the Chicago Choral Artists and the founding director of The Alchemy Project, a Minnesota non-profit organization that promotes community engagement through high-quality, interdisciplinary arts events. Also active as a professional choral singer, Emilie has performed with many of the finest choral ensembles around the country, including Bella Voce (Chicago), the Oregon Bach Festival Chorus, the Tiffany Consort (NYC), Holy Trinity Bach Choir (NYC), the Santa Fe Desert Chorale, VocalEssence (Minneapolis), Conspirare (Austin), and Cantique Early Music Ensemble (Tucson).
