- All-District Mixed Choir – Dr. Anthony Maglione
- SSAA Honor Choir – Jackson Thomas
- TTBB Honor Choir – Dr. Pete Eklund
- 9/10 Honor Choir – Dr. Julie Yu-Oppenheim
DR. ANTHONY MAGLIONE – ALL-DISTRICT MIXED CHOIR CLINICIAN
DR Anthony Maglione is the Director of Choral Studies and the Robert H. McKee Chair of Music at William Jewell College where, under his direction, the Concert Choir was Runner Up (2nd Place) for the American Prize in Choral Performance, College/University Division in 2015-2016 and 2018-2019. In addition to his responsibilities at William Jewell College, he serves as Artist-in-Residence and Choir Master at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Kansas City, Conductor Emeritus of the Freelance Ensemble Artists of NJ Symphony Orchestra. From 2012 to 2018 he served as Director of the Greater Kansas City AGO Schola Cantorum.
Maglione has made numerous guest conducting/clinician appearances and has prepared ensembles for such esteemed conductors as James Conlon, James Jordan, David Newman, Donald Neuen, and Alex Treger. Ensembles under his leadership have performed nationally and internationally at renowned concert venues including Disney Hall in Los Angeles and Carnegie Hall in New York City.
JACKSON THOMAS – SSAA HONOR CHOIR CLINICIAN
Honored to be returning to UCM as the Director of Choral Activities, Jackson Thomas is a conductor, tenor, clinician, and teacher based in the Kansas City area. Most recently serving as the Upper School Choir Director forThe Pembroke Hill School, he previously acted as the Assistant Director of Choral Activities/Opera Director at the UCM, and has held teaching positions with Kansas City Kansas Public Schools, Kansas City, MO Public Schools, and the Park Hill School District. Jackson also serves as Director of Choral Music at St. Paul’s United Methodist Church in Lenexa, KS, is director of AGO Schola Cantorum, and is most notably the Founder and Artistic Director of KC VITAs (kcvitas.org), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to the continued performance and creation of “contemporary-classical” vocal music. Jackson is an active soloist of classical and musical theatre repertoire, sings with several ensembles around the metropolitan area, and maintains a private voice and piano studio. He holds degrees from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and the University of Kansas in Vocal Performance and Choral Conducting, respectively.
DR. PETE EKLUND – TTBB HONOR CHOIR CLINICIAN
Peter A. Eklund is a Hixson-Lied Endowed Professor of Music, was recently named one of the national quarter-finalists for the first-ever GRAMMY® NATIONAL MUSIC TEACHER OF THE YEAR (out of over 30,000 nominees) and was a national finalist for the NFHS Outstanding Music Educator in 2019. He annually conducts instrumental and choral ensembles in no fewer than eight European countries and throughout North America. One of the most active and versatile international conductors today, Peter A. Eklund possesses a unique ability to work effectively with musicians at all levels of performing capability and experience. His concertizing/clinician schedule averages 60 national and international concerts annually and includes a wide array of scholarly, professional, orchestral, collegiate, liturgical, festival, all-star, and youth/student ensembles throughout North America and Europe. Trained as a classical pianist and organist in the finest traditions of Western historical music, he now is also a strong advocate for ethnic and world music spanning all genres. He counts among his early musical influences the numerous local concerts that his grandfather took him to of Big Band performances by Count Basie, Stan Kenton, Woody Herman, and others.
His academic choirs have performed on numerous American Choral Directors Association regional and national conventions where their frequency of performance set unprecedented national records (over 30 MENC—now NAfME—and ACDA regional and national invitations). Eklund has conducted his choirs in many of the world’s greatest performance venues including, Carnegie Hall (numerous times), Washington DC’s Kennedy Center Concert Hall, the National Cathedral and Shrine of the Immaculate Conception (both numerous times), Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis (on four occasions), St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice, Christ Church in Oxford, St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, Westminster Abbey, Mozart’s Salzburg Cathedral (where he conducts yearly), Paris’s Notre Dame, St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna, St. John the Divine and Alice Tully Hall in NYC, the abbey church of St. Hildegard von Bingen, Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, and in other famous major cathedrals in Prague, Milan, Bordeaux, Monaco, Munich, New York, Chicago, London, Coventry, Canterbury, Chartres, Reims, Rouen, Metz, Regensburg, Strasbourg, Paris, Rome, Florence, LeMans, and Verona plus abbeys, major churches, and performance halls in Cambridge (UK), Stratford on Avon (UK), Mt St. Michel (Normandy, France), Lucerne (Switzerland), and Bratislava (Slovakia).
DR. JULIE YU – 9TH AND 10TH GRADE HONOR CHOIR CLINICIAN
Dr. Julie Yu (She/Her/Hers) is Professor of Music and Co-Director of Choral Studies at Kansas State University where she oversees and conducts undergraduate choral ensembles, choral music education courses and the summer and residency Master of Music choral programs. Her choirs have performed in Carnegie Hall, in Hawaii, the National Cathedral in Washington DC, as well as in Austria, the Czech Republic, France, Ireland, and Italy.
She holds a Bachelor of Music degree in Music Education from the University of Central Oklahoma, Master of Music degree in Choral Conducting from Oklahoma State University, and the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Choral Conducting from the University of North Texas. Before joining the Kansas State faculty, she taught at Norman North High School in Oklahoma and San José State University.
She has given presentations, conducted, and/or her choirs have performed for state and regional conferences of the American Choral Directors Association, National Association for Music Education, and the European Music Educators Association Conferences. She is the past president of the Southwestern Region of the American Choral Directors Association and served as an International Conducting Exchange Fellow to Kenya in 2019. She serves as a member of the Kansas State University Faculty Senate.
In addition to teaching, her favorite area of research and performance involves working as a guest clinician/conductor for various honor choirs and professional organizations.
Kansas City District Choirs 