|
 Dr. Pearl Shangkuan is a professor of Music at Calvin College
in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where she directs the Calvin Alumni
Choir and the Calvin Women’s Chorale, and teaches Choral
Conducting and Choral Literature. In addition, she is the
chorusmaster of the Grand Rapids Symphony Orchestra as well
as the music editor of the Calvin Institute of Christian
Worship music series, published by GIA. Currently the President-elect
of the ACDA Central Division, she served as the president
of the Michigan ACDA (2003-05). Prior to her appointment
at Calvin College, she taught at Rutgers University and at
the Westminster Conservatory of Music of Rider University
in New Jersey.
Frequently invited to Asia, she has led performances and
given seminars in Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia,
Indonesia, Taiwan and the Philippines, as well as in Australia
and Canada. She has conducted all-state and honor choirs
in Wyoming, New York, and in Tokyo, Japan. Under her leadership,
the Calvin Alumni Choir made its first international tour
to Asia in 2000 and to the Netherlands and Belgium in 2004.
Under her direction, this choir has performed at the ACDA
central division convention (2002), presented three sessions
at the national convention (2003), and for the AGO (American
Guild of Organists) state and division conventions (2004,
2005). The Calvin Women’s Chorale performed at the
state convention of the Michigan ACDA in 2003.
Dr. Shangkuan has served as a clinician at various conferences,
most recently for the Southern Methodist University’s
Perkins School of Theology Church Music Summer School in
Dallas, the World Association for Chinese Church Music held
in East Malaysia, and the Presbyterian Association of Musicians
(PAM) in Westminster, PA. Other conference engagements include
the St. Olaf National Conference on Worship, Theology and
the Arts, the Choristers Guild Summer Seminar, Choristers
Guild Mid-Winter Workshop, Conference on Liturgy and Music
(COLAM), and the Symposium for Worship and the Arts at Calvin
College. She has also taught choral conducting at the Westminster
Choir College Summer Sessions. Her article on preeminent
American choral conductor Joseph Flummerfelt was published
in the May 2004 issue of the Choral Journal, the national
journal of the ACDA.
Honored in 2002 by the Grand Rapids YWCA as a “Woman
of Achievement,” Shangkuan has also served on the board
of the New Jersey Music Teachers’ Association and the
New Jersey ACDA. As an accompanist, she has played for ACDA
state and regional conventions. She is a member of the ACDA
(American Choral Directors Association), MENC (Music Educators
National Conference), IFCM (International Federation for
Choral Music), Chorus America, and the Phi Kappa Lambda Music
Honor Society.
She received a Bachelor of Music in Church Music (summa
cum laude) and Master of Music in Choral Conducting (with
distinction) from Westminster Choir College in Princeton,
New Jersey, and a Doctor of Musical Arts in Choral Conducting
from Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey.
This biograhy was
drawn from the Calvin College website |
