Dr. Brandon A. Boyd is the Assistant Director of Choral Activities and Assistant Professor of Choral Music Education at the University of Missouri, where he conducts the MU Glee Club and Concert Chorale. In addition to his conducting duties, he teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in choral conducting and choral music education. Boyd appears regularly as a conductor, clinician, composer-in-residence, collaborative pianist, and presenter for All-States, conferences, conventions, collegiate choirs, church choirs, and choral festivals.

As an active composer and arranger, his music is sung regularly by ensembles throughout the United States and abroad. He was recently appointed the editor for Gentry Publications. He is also the curator and editor of the "Brandon A. Boyd Choral Series," a new choral series with Hinshaw Music Publications helping promote exciting and innovative works composed by both established and new composers and arrangers. His music also appears in GIA Publications and Kjos Music Press catalogs. 

In 2017, he was invited by the Santa Fe Desert Chorale to serve as Composer-in-Residence and Community Engagement Leader for their program Giving Voice to the Voiceless. The Chorale premiered a work commissioned by the SFDC, I Search, during their 35th Anniversary of the Summer Justice Concert Series, where he served as assistant conductor, pre-concert lecturer, and guest pianist. He set to music a text written by "Poet V," a young participant in the Voces de Libertad program at the Santa Fe County Youth Development Center. His duties also included organizing and conducting the Interfaith Community Shelter Street Choir, thus creating a safe place for men, women, and children experiencing homelessness within the Santa Fe community. Other commissioning partners include the Carnegie Hall's Choirs of America Nationals for Top Choirs, Southwestern Adventist University, Florida State University/Tallahassee Community Chorus, New Mexico Music Educators Association, and the University of Nebraska-Kearney.

As a proponent of choral singing to build community, his research interests include organizing choirs for the homeless, identifying the social and physical effects of choral singing on senior citizens, and creating authentic field experiences for music therapy and choral music education students. For three years, Dr. Boyd co-directed three choral community partnerships in Florida: The Tallahassee Senior Choir, RAA Middle School Partnership Choir, (university students and middle school singers), and the MTC Women's Prison Glee Club (university students singing with women housed in a correctional facility).

He holds two degrees from Florida State University (Ph.D. in choral music education and M.M. in choral conducting) and earned a B.S. in music education (emphasis in piano) from Tennessee State University. He is a proud member of the American Choral Directors' Association (ACDA), National Association for Music Education (NAfME), National Association of Negro Musicians (NANM), American Guild of Organists (AGO), and Chorus America.

Frances Fonza is the Director of Worship and Arts at Mt. Ennon Baptist Church in Clinton, Maryland. She earned a bachelor’s degree in music education at the University of Missouri-Columbia and master’s and doctoral degrees in music education and choral conducting at Florida State University. Fonza taught choral music at the middle school and high school levels in Kentucky for several years. Most recently, Dr. Fonza was the Assistant Professor of Music Education and Director of Choral Activities at Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio.

Her responsibilities included teaching music education courses, aural skills, choral conducting, supervising music education interns, and directing the Wittenberg choirs. Choirs under her direction have participated in state, regional, and national music festivals. Dr. Fonza is an active singer, clinician, and adjudicator. A frequent guest conductor, she has conducted several honor, public school, and church choirs. Her research interests are community partnerships, healthy singing in Gospel music, and tone building strategies used in the choral classroom. Fonza holds professional memberships in the National Association for Music Education, the College Music Society, and the American Choral Directors Association.

Ryan Luhrs joined Lenoir-Rhyne University in the fall of 2016 as Assistant Professor of Music and Director of Choral Activities. He directs the LR A Cappella Choir and College Singers, coordinates the Sacred Music Program, and mentors choral music education students.

Prior to LR, Luhrs served as Assistant Professor of Music at Andrew College, in Cuthbert, GA, where he oversaw the music program and directed the college’s flagship choral ensemble. He holds a Ph.D. in Choral Conducting & Music Education from Florida State University, a Masters of Sacred Music degree from Luther Seminary (with St. Olaf College), and a B.A. in Music from Luther College. His choral music mentors include Anton Armstrong, Judy Bowers, Kevin Fenton, Weston Noble, Timothy Peter, and André Thomas.

Prior to graduate study, Luhrs taught music in public schools in Iowa and Minnesota and has served as a church choir director and organist for congregations in Minnesota and Georgia. He was also stage band director and tour director with the Kids from Wisconsin from 2005 to 2010 and sang with the Minneapolis-based National Lutheran Choir from 2008 to 2012.

A proponent of using singing in groups to break down social barriers, Luhrs has organized choral festivals in rural Minnesota, southwestern Georgia, and Tallahassee, FL. His doctoral dissertation entitled Singing for Social Harmony: Choir Member Perceptions During Intergroup Contact investigated how choral music functions in settings where people of diverse backgrounds are present. He presented related research at 2016 Chorus America national conference, 2016 Southeastern American Choral Directors Association (ACDA), and the 2015 Tallahassee Sacred Music Conference.

Ryan was one of twelve song leaders nationwide selected to participate in Raising the Song: Creating Communities that Sing, a symposium led by Alice Parker, Marilyn Haskel, and Ysaye Barnwell, held at the Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria, Virginia in the fall of 2015 and 2016.

DATE: SEPTEMBER 21st

TIME: 5:00-7:30pm EST

WHERE: VIA ZOOM

PRESENTERS:

• Dr. Brandon A. Boyd, University of Missouri

• Dr. Frances Fonza Smith, Mt. Ennon Baptist Church

• Dr. Ryan Luhrs, Lenoir-Rhyne Univiersity

MODERATORS:

• Dr. Kevin Fenton, Florida State University

• Amy Young

• Claire Yackley

• Maya Berrios