I am a conductor, performing artist, professor, scholar, and occasional arranger of instrumental and vocal pieces.
My experience includes leading comprehensive choral programs with several ensembles and graduate conducting students. Since 2023, I have served as the Director of Choral Activities at Eastern Illinois University, where I conduct three ensembles, oversee graduate students in choral conducting, and teach courses in arranging, conducting, and literature.
At EIU I have thoughtfully programmed first-class music and incorporated music by composers from under-represented groups, successfully expanded ensemble enrollment through internal recruitment, collaborated with community and high-school choral groups, led clinics and music camp, served on the recruitment committee and arranged large-scale orchestrations of choral masterpieces.
Repertoire highlights: Caroline Shaw’s To the Hands, Brahms Schicksalslied and O Heiland reiß die Himmel auf, Handel (arr. Mozart) Messiah, Pinkham Christmas Cantata (orch./arr. Eckdahl), Reena Esmail’s A Winter Breviary, Tuttarana, and The Love of Thousands, Shulamit Ran’s Hatznea Lechet and Ma Tovu
You can explore some of my EIU programs at the following links:
howardeckdahl.com/goldandshadow
howardeckdahl.com/alwayscominghome
I am also a professional performing artist in the Chicago community, occasionally singing with the all-professional choruses of Music of the Baroque and the Grant Park Music Festival, as well as the professional Atonement Schola.
I also work as a recording producer for Natasha Stojanovska, pianist, on albums that feature music by women composers. Natasha recently gave a recital of her forthcoming album after I secured a grant through the EIU New and Emerging Artist fund for her to perform in Charleston.
My previous experience as a collegiate and university professor includes working with both undergraduates and graduate students, having taught choral ensembles, applied graduate conducting, applied undergraduate voice, and musicianship courses at Western Michigan University’s Irving S. Gilmore School of Music, the University of Notre Dame’s Department of Music, and Augustana College’s Department of Music (IL).
My doctoral dissertation, which I successfully defended on June 30th, 2022, was focused on twentieth-century English composer Herbert Howells. I wrote about his stylistic development in lesser known choral pieces and aspects of texture in his some of his more famous works.
My orchestration of Herbert Howells’ Like as the hart desireth the waterbrooks is featured on the five-star (Choir & Organ) Delphian Records release of Merton College Choir of Oxford University, alongside other orchestrated Howells anthems and the newly-orchestrated Requiem of Ian Venables. https://www.delphianrecords.com/products/ian-venables-requiem-howells-anthems-for-choir-orchestra
I have assisted with recording projects, including the Delphian release mentioned above and a project featuring women composers from eastern Europe. The latter was a collaboration between pianist Natasha Stojanovska, Carmen-Helena Téllez’ Kosmologia, and GRAMMY-winning Aphorism Studios; I served as a recording session producer. https://www.navonarecords.com/catalog/nv6440/
My professional experience includes working as the Conducting Fellow of the South Bend Symphony Orchestra under GRAMMY-nominated Maestro Alastair Willis. I also assisted the SBSO with production and direction of their multi-camera HD livestreams with a professional broadcast crew.
I performed and assisted with portions of David Lang’s little match girl passion for Opera at Notre Dame’s ambitious film project Please Look with Four/Ten Media under the leadership of Kiera Duffy, featuring works by Meredith Monk, Julius Eastman, John Adams, Philip Glass, and Michael Gordon. This project won the Opera America Award for Digital Excellence.
Some highlights of my career as a professor are leading an interdisciplinary performance by composers of underrepresented groups at Western Michigan University as a part of Kimberly Dunn-Adams’ Choir for Good initiative, which brought attention to community services for homeless and displaced people; culminating a musicianship sequence at the University of Notre Dame with student aural transcriptions of the first page of J.S. Bach’s Ricercare a 6 from Musical Offering and hearing reports about aural characteristics of twentieth-century musical examples; leading a cohort of young singers to Carnegie Hall to join with others from around the continent to perform with Chanticleer’s M.D.E. Matt Oltman in DCINY’s Of Life and Liberty; arranging the French carol March of the Kings for brass band, percussion, and TTBB chorus for premiere at Christmas at Augustana; and, most of all, seeing my students succeed in their endeavors.
I have many years of experience as a sacred musician in a number of denominations. As an organist, I have been privileged to play a guest recessional at Uppsala Cathedral in Sweden, serve three times as Synod Organist for the Northern Illinois ELCA, and accompany Northern Illinois University’s premier choral group in their performance of James Whitbourn’s Son of God Mass.
Howard Eckdahl 