Guest Director & Clinician: Dr. Hilary Apfelstadt

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 the 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. She also taught at the University of Prince Edward Island for three years.

A native Canadian, she grew up in Nova Scotia where her childhood musical experiences developed a lifelong passion for music. As a conductor, 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 honours 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 and the Ontario Youth Choir. Her teaching experiences range from public school to community ensembles to church choirs. She holds leadership awards from Choirs Ontario, NC-ACDA, Ohio Choral Directors Association, and both Central and Midwestern ACDA Regions.

During her career, Hilary Apfelstadt has mentored many conductors who now hold significant positions in the profession. She has published numerous articles and book chapters on leadership, choral pedagogy, and Canadian 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 co-editor of Choral Repertoire by Women Composers (Chicago: GIA Publications, 2025), a book featuring 225 composers from around the world. She remains active in retirement as a clinician, consultant, and guest conductor.