
Peter
A. Eklund, DMA
Director of Choral Activities
contact info:
peklund1@unl.edu
PETER
A. EKLUND, D.M.A.
DIRECTOR OF CHORAL ACTIVITES
School of Music
UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA
Lincoln, NE 68588-0100
USA
office
ph: (402) 472-2993
international
mobile: 001 402 499 6263
university fax: (402) 472-8962 |
| Dr.
Peter A. Eklund
Peter
A. Eklund annually conducts instrumental and choral
ensembles in Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Southern
Europe, 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 professional,
orchestral, collegiate, liturgical, festival, 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. |
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 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, the National Cathedral,
and Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Orchestra
Hall in Minneapolis, St. Mark's Basilica in Venice,
Christ Church in Oxford, St. Paul's Cathedral in
London, Mozart's Salzburg Cathedral (where he conducts
yearly), Paris's Notre Dame (also conducting yearly),
St. Stephen's in Vienna, St. John the Divine and
Alice Tully Hall in NYC, the abbey church of St.
Hildegard von Bingen, and in other famous cathedrals,
abbeys, and performance halls in Prague, Milan, Cambridge,
Munich, New York, Chicago, London, Coventry, Canterbury,
Chartres, Reims, Rouen, Mt St. Michel, Lucerne, Metz,
Regensburg, Strasbourg, Paris, Stratford on Avon,
Bratislava, Rome, Florence, and Verona. |

Eklund
conducting at
Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris
|
Dr.
Eklund studied conducting and score-study
with American
Ditson Conductor's Award winnner and International
Mahler Medal-winner James A. Dixon, American
Choral Directors Association past-president (and
University of Nebraska–Lincoln alumnus) William
Hatcher, and nationally-recognized scholar/conductor/author/pedagogue/administrator
Don V Moses. Current and recent engagements include(d)
conducting All-State choirs in Minnesota, Colorado,
Indiana, South Dakota, Georgia, Missouri, and Alabama,
master classes and adjudicating/clinic work in Hawaii,
California, Florida, Virginia, New York, Iowa, Arizona,
Missouri, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana,
Minnesota, Kansas, Texas, Wyoming, Kentucky, Illinois,
New York, Wisconsin, North Dakota, New Mexico, Oklahoma,
Connecticutt, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Washington
D.C., North Carolina, Mississippi, and Chicago, collaborating
with NETV on a state-wide collegiate choral broadcast
(nominated for regional Emmy), conducting a regional
ACDA honor choir, and directing a summer youth honor
choir trip to ten countries.
He
divides his time among four important roles: conductor,
guest lecturer, editor (his own choral series with
Santa Barbara Music Publications), and teacher/mentor
(with numerous former students performing professionally
on both US coasts: Broadway, Lincoln Center, TV,
and Oscar winning movies - and everywhere in between),
and is the Director of Choral Activities at the University
of Nebraska-Lincoln, where he heads the Masters and
Doctoral choral conducting programs, conducts the
nationally recognized University Singers, and conducts
the nationally renowned University of Nebraska Varsity
Men's Chorus (both national MENC selected performance
ensembles, the former in 2002 - Nashville and the
latter in 2004 - Minneapolis). His publications are
found at Hope Music, Colla Voce, Concordia Publishing
House, Kimmel Publishing, and Santa Barbara Music
Publishers. However, his greatest role of all is
that of husband to Teresa and father of their four
sons: Ben, Bryant (both choral music education majors),
Brady, and Brantley.
In
his spare time, he is an occasional golfer (actually
having scored a hole-in-one), enjoys the tracker pipe
organ in his home, and is a reluctant but diligent
gardener.
|
| Teaching
Philosophy: When working with musicians of
all ages, nothing is more important than the instrumentalists'
& singers' preservation/health, education, work
ethic, and life-enrichment. Musicians in my ensembles
know that they will vocalize and make music in a healthy
manner that will assist them in all areas of professional
music-making, as a result of performances of literature
of the highest intellectual/artistic standards, and
work in rehearsal situations and lab settings that
will encourage professionalism, self-analysis, and
advanced musicianship. Both performers and conductors
alike will be schooled in efficient rehearsal technique,
subtle informed performance practice geared for both
the 21st-Century performer and listener, voice pedagogy,
intelligent musical nuance, advanced interpretation,
age-appropriate tone production, and other aspects
of professional music-making. Subtle conducting gestures
will always allow the audience to focus on the performers.
And these minute gestures will also allow the listener
to focus on the composers' innate intentions. The greatest
performances allow the listener to focus on the music,
the marriage between lyric and line, the message, the
performer/musician, and the art, not the conductors
or the conductors' gesticulations. Beginning and advanced
students who share the love of musc-making at the highest
and most advanced level are a joy to to instruct and
nurture. |
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