Wisconsin Chamber Choir Artistic Director
Dr. Robert Gehrenbeck
Robert Gehrenbeck is Director of Choral Activities at the University of Wisconsin Whitewater, where he conducts the UWW Chamber Singers, Concert Choir, Harmonia, and opera and musical theatre productions. He has served as the WCC’s Artistic Director since 2008, leading the ensemble in critically acclaimed performances of choral-orchestral masterworks as well as innovative programs featuring familiar and rarely heard a cappella works.
Gehrenbeck’s choirs have been invited to perform at state and regional conferences and in Europe, and he has guest conducted honor choir festivals throughout Wisconsin. As a singer, he has appeared with the Robert Shaw Festival Singers, Boston’s Cantata Singers, New York State Baroque, and the Bloomington Early Music Festival. He is recognized as an authority on eighteenth-century performance practice, German Romantic choral music, and contemporary music. A committed advocate on behalf of living composers, he has conducted world premieres by Peter Bloesch, Stephen Chatman, Brent Michael Davids, Christian Ellenwood, Libby Larsen, Ann Millikan, Wayne Oquin, Judith Shatin, Giles Swayne, and Augusta Read Thomas.
Dr. Gehrenbeck earned degrees from Macalester College, Boston University, and Indiana University, with additional studies at the Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy Conservatory in Leipzig, Germany. He is a recipient of the Excellence in Teaching Award from UW-Whitewater’s College of Arts and Communication, and the Julius Herford dissertation prize from the American Choral Directors Association.
Collaborative Pianist
John Scoville
Pianist John Scoville, DMA, is equally at home teaching piano through his private studio and at Stoughton Center for the Arts, collaborating with instrumentalists and singers, as organist-pianist at McFarland Lutheran Church, and on the board of Madison Area Music Educators. Dr. Scoville has worked with Interlochen Arts Camp, Opera Santa Barbara, Ojai Youth Opera, San Miguel Institute of Bel Canto, Ensemble Theatre Company, Children’s Theatre of Madison, and UW-Madison. He has performed in master classes for Tara Helen O’Connor, Denis Bouriakov, Gil Shaham, and Anne Epperson and in recital with Julie Davies, soprano, and flutist Taylor Irelan among many others.
