Heartland Voices Choral Festival returns Thursday to Huntley
The third annual Heartland Voices Choral Festival will be held at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, April 7, in the Huntley High School Performing Arts Center, 13719 Harmony Road. It will features choirs from Huntley, Jacobs, and Hampshire high schools, with guest conductor Jon Hurty of Augustana College.
Tickets are $5. Visit heartlandvoices.com. To reserve tickets, call the box office at (847) 429-9486.
Hurty is professor, director of choral activities and Gassman Family Endowed Chair in Music at Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois. He directs the Augustana Choir, the Augustana Chamber Singers, teaches conducting and is co-chair of the music department. He also directs the adult choir at St. Paul Lutheran Church in Davenport, Iowa, is the conductor and artistic director of Quad City Choral Arts and serves as the conductor of the Handel Oratorio Society at Augustana. Before coming to Rock Island, he was director of choral activities at Concordia University in Irvine, California.
Active as a guest conductor and clinician throughout the United States and abroad, he has served in this capacity in all-state, state and regional festivals of the American Choral Directors Association, the Association of Lutheran Church Musicians, National Association for Music Education, and many colleges and high schools. Other professional activities have included conducting the Tian Kong Choir and serving as guest professor at Huazhong Normal University in Wuhan, China as well as guest conducting on the Quad City Symphony Orchestra subscription series. He has conducted his choirs in concerts throughout the United States as well as Sweden, Norway, China, Germany, Italy, Austria, Japan and Korea.
He completed his undergraduate degree in vocal performance at Bethany College in Lindsborg, Kansas, where he graduated summa cum laude, his master's degree in choral Conducting from California State University, Northridge, and his doctorate in choral conducting and literature from the University of Illinois. He has studied conducting with John Alexander, Don Moses, Chet Alwes and Ann Howard Jones. Throughout his career, Hurty has had an interest in developing and refining his skills as a conductor and has studied conducting in workshops with Paul Christiansen, Robert Shaw and Helmut Rilling as well as singing under many conductors including Christopher Hogwood, Sir Charles Groves, and Roger Wagner.