"To have sung this music with a virtuoso orchestra and in youth must be one of
the decisive events in a lifetime. A man would be one person before it; he
would be another ever afterward. For no one need tell him that a world of the
creative spirit exists. He has lived in it. He knows."
--Lucien Price, Amphion's Lyre
Assistant Conductor
Michael McGaghie is Assistant Conductor of the Harvard Glee Club. He is currently Director of Choral Activities at The Boston Conservatory, where he conducts the Boston Conservatory Chorale and teaches choral literature and aural skills. He is also Music Director of the Concord Chorus, a community ensemble based in Concord, MA.
Recent conducting projects have included the world premiere of Tarik O'Regan's Se lamentar augelli and an appearance at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts with the Glee Club, as well as Faure’s Requiem and Bach’s St. John Passion with the Concord Chorus. He also conducted the Glee Club’s recent Spring Tour 2011 to the American Southeast. In December 2011 he will conduct the Boston Conservatory Chorale and Boston Conservatory Orchestra in Beethoven's Mass in C, and in May 2012 he will conduct Brahms's Ein deutsches Requiem with the Concord Chorus and professional orchestra and soloists.
Deeply committed to undergraduate education, Dr. McGaghie served for six years as Resident Tutor in Music and Chemistry in Eliot House, one of Harvard College's twelve residential communities. To date he has received eight Citations for Excellence in Teaching from Harvard's Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning. Most recently, he was named recipient of the 2010 Julius Herford Prize, awarded annually by the American Choral Directors Association for the nation's most outstanding dissertation in choral music.
He holds masters and doctoral degrees in conduting from Boston University and an undergraduate degree in chemistry from Harvard College. He has studied conducting and choral literature with Ann Howard Jones, Joseph Flummerfelt, Jameson Marvin, Robert Page, David Hoose and the late Craig Smith. His dissertation examined literary features and style in the music of American composer Dominick Argento. Mike is a proud member of the American Choral Directors Association, the National Collegiate Choral Organization, the College Music Society, the music honor society Pi Kappa Lambda and Red Sox Nation.
