Hilary Apfelstadt

Biography

Dr. Hilary Apfelstadt is Professor Emerita of Choral Studies at the University of Toronto where she held the Elmer Iseler Chair in Conducting. From 2013 – 2018, she was artistic director of Exultate Chamber Singers, a semi-professional ensemble in Toronto. After retiring from U of T, she served as Interim Executive Director of the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA) for a year and has recently done significant conducting residencies at McGill University in Montreal and at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Previous full-time university teaching appointments in the U.S. were at the Ohio State University and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

A native Canadian, she has led her university choirs in performances at ACDA conferences and at Podium, the national professional conference of Choral Canada. She has guest conducted numerous honors choruses and festivals throughout North America and internationally, including forty all-state choirs in the U.S. She directed the 2014 National Youth Choir of Canada. Her teaching experiences range from public school to community ensembles to church choirs. She holds leadership awards from Choirs Ontario, NC-ACDA, the Ohio Choral Directors Association, and both Central and also Midwestern ACDA Regions. A life member of ACDA, she is a past national president.

During her career, Hilary Apfelstadt has mentored many conductors and advised multiple graduate conducting majors, many of whom now hold significant positions in the profession. She has published numerous articles and book chapters on leadership, choral pedagogy, and Canadian choral music. Her book on the life and work of Canadian composer Ruth Watson Henderson, I Didn’t Want It To be Boring (Toronto: Prism Publishers), won Choral Canada’s award for Outstanding Choral Publication in 2018. She is currently editing a book on female choral composers (Choral Repertoire by Women Composers), to be published by GIA Publications in 2025. She serves on the Editorial Board of Anacrusis for Choral Canada, and as a writing mentor for the National Collegiate Conducting Organization (NCCO).