Maurice Boyer is professor of music at Concordia University Chicago, where he conducts the chamber orchestra and the chapel choir (Schola Cantorum, and teaches aural skills, music history and courses in the honors curriculum.


Boyer holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Orchestral Conducting from the University of Maryland, College Park. His Master of Music is in Choral Conducting and his Bachelor of Music in Sacred Music (with piano as his principal instrument), both earned at Westminster Choir College of Rider University in Princeton, New Jersey. His principal conducting teachers have been Joseph Flummerfelt, Kenneth Kiesler, and James Ross. He also studied theology at Princeton Theological Seminary.

His primary areas of academic research and expertise include the orchestral music of Jean Sibelius.


Degrees

  • DMA, Orchestral Conducting - University of Maryland; College Park, MD
  • MM, Choral Conducting - Westminster Choir College of Rider University; Princeton, NJ
  • BMus, Sacred Music - Westminster Choir College of Rider University; Princeton, NJ

Academic and Professional Highlights

Prior Positions

American Kantorei, Music Director (2014-ongoing)
Symphony of Oak Park and River Forest, Associate Conductor (2012-ongoing)
Aestas Consort, Artistic Director (2013-2019)
Heritage Chorale, Music Director (2008-2015)
First Saint Paul's Lutheran Church, Music Director (2008-2009)

Areas of Research

The orchestral music of Jean Sibelius, music and theology in the sacred vocal works of J. S. Bach


Publications:

  • The Articulation of Time in the Seventh Symphony of Jean Sibelius: Toward Informed Performance (doctoral dissertation)

  • Boyer, M. Arranger & Conductor.

  • Boyer, M. Conductor.

  • Boyer, M. Conductor. Bach

  • Boyer, M. Composer. Psalm 121 (2023 Commission - Oak Park Concert Chorale)

Presentations/Performances/Creative Work:

  • Conducted Bach

  • Conducted Brahms

  • Conducted Bach Cantatas BWV 37, 75 and 95 for the Peoria Bach Festival as Guest Conductor (summer 2022)

  • Prepared opera choruses for the Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal as Guest Chorus Master (summer 2018)

  • Prepared the Penderecki

  • Co-led the Conducting Symposium at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign as Guest Faculty (summers 2019 and 2021)