Kirsten Hedegaard Director of Music

Kirsten Hede­gaard has enjoyed a duel career as a singer and con­duc­tor. She has per­formed numer­ous Bach can­tatas and baroque cham­ber music and has been a soloist with many early music spe­cial­ists includ­ing Nicholas McGe­gan, Paul Hillier, Ivars Tau­rins, Ken­neth Slowik, and John Butt. Ms. Hede­gaard has sung with, Phil­har­mo­nia Baroque (found­ing mem­ber), Mer­cury Baroque, Ensem­ble viii, Baroque Band, the New­berry Con­sort, Ars Anti­qua, the Rook Ensem­ble, the Cal­lipy­gian Play­ers, the Opera Com­pany, Bella Voce, and Tafel­musik BSI among other ensem­bles. Ms. Hede­gaard has per­formed a vari­ety of new works, includ­ing an inter­na­tional tour of Louis Andriessens’s The Odyssey with the Bep­pie Blankert Dance Com­pany and per­for­mances with the Grammy-award win­ning new music ensem­ble, eighth blackbird.

Cur­rently Direc­tor of Choral Activ­i­ties at Loy­ola Uni­ver­sity, Ms. Hede­gaard has taught con­duct­ing at Con­cor­dia Uni­ver­sity, River For­est and has con­ducted choirs and orches­tras for var­i­ous insti­tu­tions includ­ing East­man House, Chicago Children’s Choir, Gallery 37, Loy­ola Acad­emy, and the Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia. She was guest con­duc­tor with Chicago Choral Artists for the 2009-10 sea­son and is the for­mer con­duc­tor for the Bella Voce Out­reach pro­gram. In 2000, she co-founded The Musi­cal Offer­ing, a non­profit music school in Evanston where she held the posi­tion of Exec­u­tive Direc­tor until 2005. She also holds the posi­tion of Direc­tor of Music at the Pres­by­ter­ian Church of Barrington.

Ms. Hede­gaard holds a BM from North­west­ern Uni­ver­sity and her MA in con­duct­ing from the Uni­ver­sity of CA, where she was assis­tant to Paul Hillier. In 2008 she was invited to be a con­duct­ing Fel­low at the Yale Nor­folk Fes­ti­val, study­ing with Simon Carrington.