Stephen Blackwelder, conductor

DePaul Community Chorus conductor Stephen Blackwelder has enjoyed an active and artistically diverse career since age 20, when he was invited to conduct the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra while assisting Eve Queler with a production of Cosi fan tutte.

Now in his twelfth season as Music Director of the Waukegan Symphony Orchestra, his 2011-2012 schedule includes five subscription concerts with the WSO, three concerts with the DePaul Community Chorus and appearances at this season's ever-popular “Christmas at DePaul” concerts. Recent appearances include performances of Verdi's Un Ballo in Maschera and I Lombardi with da Corneto Opera. In his ten seasons as Music Director of the Hinsdale Chamber Orchestra, he attracted and delighted audiences with fresh, innovative programming and an informal and appealing concert style. Highlights of past seasons include performances with celebrated flautist Carol Wincenc, Metropolitan Opera soprano Nancy Gustafson, Ruben Gonzalez and John Sharp of the Chicago Symphony, and the NIU Philharmonic with soloists from the famed Vermeer Quartet. Guest conducting engagements include the Richmond, Bremerton and Sacramento Symphonies, as well as the Chicago String Ensemble, where he was praised for his "warmly expressive conducting" by Robert Marsh of the Chicago Sun-Times.

Choral music has always been an active component of Blackwelder's musical life and he has been a church/temple choir director for over 25 years. Currently conductor of the early music ensemble Ars Musica Chicago, he has led that group in numerous concerts and recordings. As founder of the Waukegan Festival Chorus, he leads it in biennial concerts with the Waukegan Symphony. As an accomplished professional singer, he performed frequently under such conductors as Robert Shaw, James Levine, Sir Georg Solti, Claudio Abbado and Margaret Hillis while a member of the Aspen Chamber Choir and Chicago Symphony Chorus.

A native of North Carolina, Stephen Blackwelder was the first undergraduate to receive a Bachelor of Music in conducting and voice from UNC-Chapel Hill. During his studies for the Master of Music degree at Northwestern University, he assisted Grigg Fountain with the Alice Millar Chapel Choir in addition to his duties with orchestral and opera groups. Blackwelder has served as Director of Choral music at Lake Forest College and also led performances with Downers Grove Oratorio Society, Maine Township Chorale and the Concert Choir of Northern IL University. While in North Carolina, he answered a last-minute call to step in as Choral Director for 50 performances of The Lost Colony, America's longest running outdoor drama.

Also an accomplished opera conductor, Blackwelder has directed over 20 staged productions including Ars Musica Chicago's North American premiere of La Purpura de la Rosa, the first opera ever composed in the Americas. His debut performances of Madame Butterfly with the Augusta Opera were critically acclaimed as "vigorous and passionate... the demanding score was played with confidence and sensitivity." A former Chorusmaster and Assistant Conductor of Hinsdale Opera Theater, he went on to conduct staged performances of Opera Illinois and served as the first Assistant Conductor of Chicago Opera Theater for three seasons. Past engagements include Mozart's The Magic Flute, Tchaikovsky's Pique Dame, Vives' zarzuela Bohemios, Britten's Albert Herring and Rossini's La Cambiale di Matrimonio as well as a Rodgers and Hammerstein Gala at the Killington Music Festival in Vermont.

For three seasons Blackwelder was Assistant Conductor of Chicago Opera Theater where he worked with Gian Carlo Menotti, Mark Flint, and the company's Artistic Director, Alan Stone. He was Chorusmaster and Assistant Conductor of Hinsdale Opera Theater for three seasons, and conducted staged performances with Opera Illinois. His professional study includes four seasons with the renowned Aspen Music Festival and master classes with Sir Georg Solti, Max Rudolf and Erich Leinsdorf.