Andrew Minear

A conductor, choral artist, and teacher,
Dr. Andrew Minear is passionate about the power of choral music.

“Choral music is exhilarating and allows us to transcend our everyday lives. In community with others, we journey into an extraordinary realm where we unify body, mind, and spirit.”

Andrew T. Minear is Assistant Professor of Music and Director of Choral Activities at the University of Alabama where he conducts University Singers and University Chorus, oversees the graduate choral conducting program, and teaches courses in conducting and choral literature. His choirs have appeared at state, regional, and national conventions of the American Choral Directors Association. The UA University Singers performed at the 2018 Alabama Music Educators Association conference, and since 2016, performances of major works at UA have included Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms, Bach’s Missa Brevis in A, Mozart’s Requiem, and the southeastern premier of Jocelyn Hagen’s multi-media symphony, The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci. Dr. Minear’s dedication to students and passion for expressive music-making have been cultivated through two decades of experience in children’s, church, community, middle school, high school, collegiate, and professional choral settings.

With appearances across the United States, Dr. Minear is an active conductor, choral clinician, adjudicator, and conference presenter. Recent or upcoming conducting engagements include the National Concert Chorus in Carnegie Hall, Music and Worship Arts weeks in Lake Junaluska and Montreat, and all-state choirs in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, and North Carolina. He has conducted multiple summers at the Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp in Michigan and led the Florida Ambassadors of Music on performance tours of Europe. He has also conducted in the countries of Georgia and Indonesia, and in the summer of 2020, Dr. Minear will teach a conducting masterclass at the Seoul Oratorio Festival in South Korea and present his research on choral literature at the 12^thWorld Symposium on Choral Music in Auckland, New Zealand.

Prior to joining the faculty at the University of Alabama, Minear pursued a doctorate degree in choral conducting at Michigan State University. He served as the director of the MSU Campus Choir and assistant director of the MSU Men’s Glee Club. Under his leadership, the Campus Choir increased in size to over eighty singers and performed their first choral-orchestral work, Borodin’s Polovetsian Dances, with the MSU Concert Orchestra. Michigan State University named Minear a University Distinguished Fellow, and his doctoral project was a study of Graduate Choral Literature Curricula and Pedagogy.

Over the course of a twelve-year career in the Orlando-area public schools, Andrew Minear taught middle school and high school Chorus, Music History, Keyboard, Musical Theater, and AP Music Theory. During his six yearsas Choral Director at Dr. Phillips High School, home of the Visual and Performing Arts Magnet for Orange County Public Schools, the Chorus Department grew from 100 to over 240 singers. The DPHS Concert Choir performed with the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra, and Minear’s students were selected over 180 times for All-State and ACDA Honor Choirs. Cora Bella, the advanced women’s choir, performed to acclaim at State (2011), Southern Division (2012), and National (2013) Conferences of the American Choral Directors Association.

He holds memberships with the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA), Chorus America, the College Music Society, the International Federation of Choral Music, the National Collegiate Choral Organization, the National Association for Music Education, and the Royal School of Church Music. He currently serves as Associate Editor of The Choral Scholar, the Journal of the National Collegiate Choral Organization, and as the Alabama ACDA Repertoire and Resources Coordinator for College and University Choirs. In this role he also coordinates the Alabama ACDA Collegiate Choral Festival. In the past, he served on the state boards for Florida ACDA, the Florida Vocal Association, and the Michigan School Vocal Music Association.

Dr. Minear has attended conducting workshops with Rodney Eichenberger, Simon Halsey and Helmuth Rilling; and he was recognized as a finalist for the 2015 American Prize in Conducting. Dr. Minear received his Doctor of Musical Arts degree in choral conducting from Michigan State University where he studied with Dr. David Rayl, Dr. Jonathan Reed, and Dr. Sandra Snow. He received his Bachelor of Music Education and Master of Music Education from Florida State University where he studied with Dr. Judy Bowers, Dr. Kevin Fenton, and Dr. André Thomas.