Judith Willoughby
Professor Judith Willoughby is Professor of Music (Conducting and Music Education) and Associate Director of Choral Activities at Oklahoma City University. She is also Artistic Director of the Canterbury Academy of Vocal Arts (CAVA), the youth choral program of the Canterbury Choral Society, which established a partnership with Oklahoma City University. She comes to Oklahoma City University from Northwestern University where she was a member of the conducting and music education faculty.
Professor Willoughby earned an MM in choral conducting and piano performance from Temple University and a BM in piano performance from Northwestern University where she was also a member of the Mortar Board Society. Her principal teachers included Elaine Brown (choral conducting), Max Rudolph and William Smith (orchestral conducting), and Natalie Hinderas and Gui Mombaerts (piano). She taught, for many years, in the Summer Institute Program at the Eastman School of Music, has also taught at Westminster Choir College’s Summer Institute and at Central Connecticut State University, and most recently lectured at the Central Conservatory in Beijing, China. Professor Willoughby began her career teaching in the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania public schools. She founded the Temple University Children’s Choir in Temple’s Center for Gifted Young Musicians and led that ensemble to international prominence during her ten-year association with the school. She also founded and, for twenty years, led the Choral Society of Montgomery County (PA) which received many honors during her leadership. Both ensembles appeared at regional and/or national meetings of the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA) and the Music Educators National Conference, and were featured in live broadcasts on classical music stations in the Mid Atlantic region and abroad. Both choirs also recorded and were featured on Chorus America’s former radio program, The First Art. In 2000, the Temple University Children’s Choir performed in concert, and in collaboration with the Oregon Bach Festival Orchestra and Chorus, in Eugene, Oregon, under the baton of Helmut Rilling. Additionally, the Temple University Children’s Choir was featured on recordings, led by Willoughby, for the Silver Burdett Ginn Music Series published in 2002.
Judith Willoughby has conducted professional, adult volunteer, collegiate, high school, junior high/middle school, and children’s honor, all-state and festival choruses throughout North America, Europe, the Caribbean and Asia. She has appeared internationally as a guest conductor and clinician in the world’s major concert halls in China, Hong Kong, Puerto Rico, Australia, Canada, Wales, Hungary, the Czech Republic, St. Petersburg, Russia, and throughout North America. In 2003, Willoughby conducted the Women’s Honor Choir at the American Choral Directors Association national convention in New York City, and she conducts Eastern and Northwest ACDA divisional honor choirs during the 2005-2006 season.
During her years in Pennsylvania, Willoughby served terms as state president of Pennsylvania’s branches of the American Choral Directors Association and the Pennsylvania Collegiate Choral Association. She has served on panels for the National Endowment of the Arts, state arts agencies and private foundations. She also edits a new choral series published by Alliance Music. She served nine years on the board of Chorus America (two as secretary), and currently dedicates her efforts to Chorus America’s conducting task force and as national co-chair of the Children and Youth constituency group. Judith Willoughby is a member of the International Federation for Choral Music, Chorus America, the College Music Society and the Music Educators National Conference. She is also a life member of the American Choral Directors Association.
