Michael McGaghie

Michael McGaghie is Professor and Chair of Music and Director of Choral Activities at
Macalester College, where he conducts the Macalester Concert Choir and Chorale and
teaches courses in music history, musicianship, and conducting. He also directs the
Isthmus Vocal Ensemble (Madison, WI) and the Harvard Glee Club Young Alumni
Chorus.

Under his direction, both the Concert Choir and the Isthmus Vocal Ensemble were
selected by audition to perform at regional conferences of the American Choral
Directors Association. He was one of seven Americans chosen for the ACDA
International Conductors Exchange Program in China, where he taught and conducted
at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music and Fudan University. His dissertation on the
choral music of Dominick Argento received ACDA’s Julius Herford Prize in 2010.

A strong advocate for the music of living composers, he has commissioned over twenty
new choral works and conducted premieres by Dominick Argento, Saunder Choi,
Dominick DiOrio, Jocelyn Hagen, Dale Trumbore, and Jake Runestad, among others.
Regionally, he has served as regular guest conductor of the Twin Cities chorus Singers
in Accord and as an ensemble tenor within the Minnesota Beethoven Festival Chorale.
He remains active as a clinician throughout the United States and abroad. He has
served the choral profession through multiple leadership roles in ACDA and the National
Collegiate Choral Organization, most recently as the elected Treasurer of NCCO.

Prior to his Macalester appointment, Dr. McGaghie served on the conducting faculties of
Harvard University and The Boston Conservatory at Berklee. He holds a BA in
chemistry from Harvard College and the MM and DMA degrees in conducting from the
Boston University School of Music. He is deeply grateful for his choral mentors: Van
Quinn, Phil Smith, Jameson Marvin, and Ann Howard Jones.