Australian born conductor Heather J. Buchanan is Director of Choral Activities at Montclair State University (MSU), Upper Montclair, NJ where she conducts the 150-voice Chorale and 48-voice University Singers. She is co-editor and compiler of the GIA choral series Teaching Music through Performance in Choir, (Vol. 2, 2007; Vol. 1, 2005), and has also published the DVD-Video Evoking Sound: Body Mapping & Gesture Fundamentals (2002 & 2004) and two choral octavos in the Evoking Sound Choral Series also by GIA. Prior to Montclair she was on the conducting faculty at Westminster Choir College of Rider University where she conducted Westminster Schola Cantorum and taught graduate and undergraduate choral conducting. A certified Andover Educator, Ms. Buchanan specializes in the teaching of Body Mapping and somatic pedagogy for choral musicians. She is also a certified Johrei Reiki and Integrated Energy Therapy (IET) Practitioner. Ms. Buchanan is a Ph.D. Candidate with the University of New England (Australia) researching the impact of Body Mapping on student musicians. From 2000 -2004 Ms. Buchanan was Artistic Director and Conductor of the Greater South Jersey Chorus, where she conducted the 70-voice full chorus and 30-voice Chamber Choir in a variety of concerts and community events and recorded their first commercial CD Tis the Season! She also served as chair for Repertoire & Standards for Youth & Student Activities for the New Jersey chapter of the American Choral Director’s Association (2001-2005). Born in Brisbane, Australia, Ms. Buchanan earned a Bachelor of Music degree from the Queensland Conservatorium of Music (Australia) and a Master of Music degree with distinction from Westminster with a double major in choral conducting and music education.
Ms. Buchanan has consistently received glowing reviews of her performances. Her work with the opera chorus for Elmer Gantry (January 2008), a major ‘role’ in the production, received outstanding recognition in the New York Times and New Jersey Star-Ledger reviews: “the well-rehearsed student chorus sang with heartfelt conviction,” and “the student chorus was a marvel of diction, tuning and rhythm, but it also offered something else that’s harder to find in professionals; new-minted enthusiasm, vibrancy." Music critic Don Delaney of The Times of Trenton wrote: the hushed effect she achieve in the final words, ‘Dona nobis pacem,’ (Give us peace) was breathtaking. The Berkshire Eagle review described her performance as “stunning… exceptional…mesmerizing. Conductor Heather J. Buchanan… with a wave of her expressive hands loosed an unbelievable palette of sound that coaxed tears from people’s eyes and then rattled their teeth!” In his review of Westminster Schola Cantorum’s world-premiere performance of O God, Why Have You Forsaken Us?, a commission by composer Joel Phillips, Paul Somers of Classical New Jersey stated: “One cannot imagine a better premier performance as the Schola sang with utter conviction and technical sureness.” On the same program, Mr. Somers’ assessment of the Choir’s Finzi and Barber was clear: “…they are both downright gorgeous and were sung that way.”
Ms. Buchanan’s conducting credits include the 2007 Dvořák Festival in Prague, Zlonice (Czech Republic), and Vienna (May 2007), an historic collaboration with celebrated American composer and performer Meredith Monk and Company (December 2006), the World Premiere performances of Madison’s Descent by celebrated Irish composer Mícheál ÓSúílleabháin (May 2005), guest conducting The Greater Trenton Symphony Orchestra, the Princeton Society of Musical Amateurs, and preparing choirs for performances with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, Bay Atlantic Symphony, and Pottstown Symphony. In December 2004 the Montclair State University Chorale gave the New York metropolitan area premiere performances of The Lord of the Rings Symphony with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra under the baton of John Maucceri, and in October 2006 they opened the NJSO’s 2006-07 season with three performances of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony (Choral) under the baton of maestro Neeme Järvi. The Beethoven has also been broadcast nationally on the classical music radio networks. In November 2008 the MSU Chorale will collaborate with the NJSO again for thee performances of Orff’s spectacular Carmina Burana conducted by Jacques LaCombe. In May 2005 the MSU Singers completed a ten-day tour of Central Europe, giving outstanding performances to audiences in Prague, Bratislava, Debrecen, and the Ferenc Liszt Zeneakadémia in Budapest. The 2007-08 University Singers will tour Russia in May 2008 to celebrate the University’s Centenary, performing at the renowned Rachmaninoff Hall, collaborating with the Chamber Choir of the Moscow State Conservatory, and performing at the Tsarskoe Selo in St. Petersburg.
A vibrant musician and dynamic pedagogue, Ms. Buchanan presents regularly at conventions, festivals and workshops at regional, state and national levels and is in demand as a clinician, adjudicator and guest conductor for choral festivals, honor choirs, and choral and Body Mapping workshops in the USA and abroad. In July 2008 she will return to Sydney, Australia to conduct the second Biennial Australian National Seniors’ Choral Festival; she conducted the inaugural festival in Newcastle in July 2006. A recipient of a prestigious Rotary Foundation Ambassadorial Scholarship (1996-97), Ms Buchanan is a twice honored Paul Harris Fellow (1997 & 2003) and received a Rotary Foundation Education Award in 1998. She is a member of Phi Beta Delta, the national honor society for international and U.S. students; a member of Pi Kappa Lambda, the national music honor society; an Honorary Member of the Delta Delta chapter of Sigma Alpha Iota; and a member of the academic honor society Phi Kappa Phi. She resides in Princeton Junction, New Jersey with her husband Peter and daughter Paige.