Bienen School of Music CHORAL ORGANIZATIONS

Andrew Megill

Director of Choral Organizations

DMA, Rutgers University

Andrew Megill is professor of conducting and director of choral organizations at the Northwestern University Bienen School of Music, where he holds the Carol F. and Arthur L. Rice, Jr. University Professorship in Performance. He conducts the Bienen Contemporary/Early Vocal Ensemble and teaches Advanced and Graduate Choral Conducting. In addition, he leads Music of the Baroque, the Montreal Symphony Orchestra Chorus, the Carmel Bach Festival Chorale, and Fuma Sacra.

Megill is recognized as one the leading choral conductors of his generation, admired for both his passionate artistry and his unusually wide-ranging repertoire, which extends from early music to newly composed works. He has prepared choirs for the American Composers’ Orchestra, American Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Dresden Philharmonie, National Symphony, New Jersey Symphony, New York Philharmonic, and Venice Baroque Orchestra for conductors including Pierre Boulez, Charles Dutoit, Joseph Flummerfelt, Rafael Frühbeck du Burgos, Alan Gilbert, Neeme Järvi, Zdenek Macal, Kurt Masur, Zubin Mehta, Kent Nagano, John Nelson, Rafael Payare, and Julius Rudel. Recordings of choirs conducted or prepared by him may be heard on the Decca, EMI, Canteloupe, Naxos, Albany, and CBC labels.

Megill is particularly admired for his performances of Baroque choral works. He regularly collaborates with leaders in the field of historically-informed performance, and has conducted many period-instrument orchestras, including Piffaro, Rebel, Sinfonia NYC, Brandywine Baroque, the Sebastians, Tempesta di Mare, and the Trinity Baroque Orchestra. A frequent champion of music of our own time, he has also conducted regional or world premieres of works by Caleb Burhans, Paul Chihara, Dominic DiOrio, Sven-David Sandström, Caroline Shaw, Lewis Spratlan, Steven Stucky, Jon Magnussen, Arvo Pärt, and Krzysztof Penderecki.

Prior to his appointment at Northwestern, Megill served as professor and director of choral activities at the University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign) and taught at Westminster Choir College for more than 20 years. He also previously served as music director of the Masterwork Chorus and Orchestra and Chorusmaster for the Spoleto Festival USA. He has been a guest artist with the Yale Institute of Sacred Music, TENET vocal ensemble, the Juilliard Opera Center, and Emmanuel Music, and served as interim choirmaster for Trinity Church in Manhattan.’

A.J. Keller

Associate Director of Choral Organizations

DMA, Northwestern University

A.J. Keller is an active performer, conductor, and educator throughout the Chicagoland area. He conducts the Northwestern University Chorale and University Singers, and teaches the graduate Choral Literature sequence, Basic Conducting, and Choral Music Education Methods. In addition to his work on the choral faculty at Northwestern, he is the founder and artistic director of Stare at the Sun, a 24-voice professional chamber choir specializing in the curation of contemporary music, and he serves as the Music Director at Glencoe Union Church.

A.J. has been actively involved in various projects both within and beyond Chicago. He served as chorus master for the Chicago premiere of Jake Heggie’s Moby-Dick with Chicago Opera Theater and as assistant chorus master for the world premiere of David Lang’s prisoner of the state with the New York Philharmonic, conducted by Jaap van Zweden. Previously, he served as a music assistant in the American premiere of Lang’s 1000-voice crowd out at Chicago’s Millennium Park. He is also internationally active, recently serving as guest conductor in an artistic collaboration with the Danish contemporary-music chamber choir Ensemble Edge, involving performances of Lang’s the little match girl passion at the Royal Academy of Music in Aarhus and OrkesterEfterskolen in Holstebro. Previous faculty appointments include serving as Director of Choral Activities at Beloit College and a sabbatical replacement appointment on the choral faculty at North Park University. He has also served as Artistic Director of the Wicker Park Choral Singers and Assistant Conductor at the Green Lake Choral Institute. Originally trained as a K-12 music educator, he has held various teaching positions throughout the Chicagoland area and still teaches privately.

A.J.’s primary areas of interest are contemporary choral music, postminimalism, and the Danish New Simplicity style. His 2020 dissertation, “Poor in Material, Non-Dramatic, Without Pathos: Elements of the Danish New Simplicity in the Choral Works of Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen” won him the American Choral Directors Association Julius Herford Dissertation Prize.  He holds a Bachelor of Music Education degree from Illinois Wesleyan University, and he earned the Master of Music and Doctor of Music degrees, both in conducting, from the Bienen School of Music.

Stephen Alltop

Baroque Music Ensemble

DMA, Northwestern University

A conductor, harpsichordist, and organist, Stephen Alltop is conductor of the Baroque Music Ensemble and Senior Lecturer in conducting, harpsichord, and oratorio in the Henry and Leigh Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University. He previously served as Director of Music for Alice Millar Chapel. A specialist in oratorio performance, he has conducted over 100 oratorio and operatic masterworks. He also serves as music director for the Apollo Chorus of Chicago, the Champaign-Urbana Symphony Orchestra and the Elmhurst Symphony Orchestra. Under his direction, the Apollo Chorus has expanded its collaborations to include appearances with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Lollapalooza, the London Symphony Orchestra, Ravinia Festival, Josh Groban on Tour, and The Oprah Winfrey Show. Recent performances with Chicago Opera Theater have included Rachmninoff’s Aleko, Joby Talbot’s Everest and Karol Szymanowski’s King Roger. In 2022, he was named Conductor of the Year by the Illinois Council of Orchestras for his work with the Elmhurst Symphony Orchestra. The orchestra has received multiple awards for excellence in programming. He has also been named to Northwestern’s Faculty Honor Roll.

Dr. Alltop has guest-conducted numerous choruses and orchestras across the United States and Italy. He has led opera and orchestral concerts with numerous Italian orchestras, including I Soloisti di Perugia, Fondazione Arturo Toscanini (Bologna), Teatro Reggio Orchestra (Parma), Festival Mozart (Roverto), Orchestra Sinfonica della Provincia di Bari, Teatro Piccinni (Bari), and the Festival Duni (Matera). In February 2013, he was a guest conductor for the International School Choral Music Society in Busan, South Korea. In June of 2022, he stepped in on four hours’ notice to lead the Grant Park Symphony Orchestra in a program of Beethoven, Schubert, and Tchaikovsky that was broadcast live on WFMT. He returned to conduct the Grant Park Symphony Orchestra in August of 2023.

Stephen Alltop is a passionate advocate for under-represented composers in both the orchestral and choral realm. He has worked closely with leading composers of the day, including significant projects with Michael Abels, Jeff Beal, John Corigliano, Eleanor Daley, Stephen Paulus and Eric Whitacre, and has conducted world premieres of works by John Luther Adams, Jan Bach, Miguel del Agila, Frank Ferko, Fabrizio Festa, Stephen Paulus, Joseph Schwantner, Alan Terricciano, and many others. The Champaign-Urbana Symphony was recently named a recipient of a Music Alive grant from New Music USA and the League of American Symphony Orchestras, which placed composer Stacy Garrop in residence with the orchestra from 2016-2019. A recording of Garrop’s Terra Nostra featuring the Alice Millar Chapel Choir, the Northwestern University Chorale and the Northwestern University Symphony Orchestra will be released on Cedille Records in April of 2024.

An active musician in historic performance practices, Stephen Alltop has performed with many of today’s outstanding early music musicians, including Julianne Baird, Elizabeth Blumenstock, David Douglass, Ellen Hargis, Ingrid Matthews, Kenneth Slowik and Ton Koopman. He has performed as a harpsichordist and organist with Boston’s Handel and Haydn Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Bach Project, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, Music of the Baroque, and the Omaha Symphony. Dr. Alltop has served as principal organist for Soli Deo Gloria’s Chicago Bach Project. In 2011, he was principal organist performing Bach’s St. Matthew Passion with the Ensemble Orchestral de Paris and conductor John Nelson at the Basilique St. Denis in France. As conductor of the Annual Celebration of Celtic Music at Chicago’s Symphony Center, he has worked with distinguished television and stage performers such as Brian Dennehy, Bill Kurtis, John Mahoney, Martin Sheen and Senator George Mitchell. In 2014 he coordinated and performed as part of the WFMT Bach Organ Project which included the complete organ works of Bach. In the Fall of 2015, Alltop served as a recitalist, coordinator and concert host for the WFMT Bach Keyboard Festival in Chicago, a presentation of the complete keyboard works of Bach. His performances have been broadcast on Medici TV, RAI Italian Radio and Television, and the WFMT Fine Arts Network. His recordings can be found on the Albany, Cedille, Clarion, and American Gramaphone labels.

In demand as a speaker about music, Dr. Alltop lectures frequently for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Northwestern University Alumnae Continuing Education Series, Osher Lifelong Learning, and many other organizations. Since 2014, he has given presentations on leadership for various programs in the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

Chuck Foster

Collaborative Pianist

BMus, Northwestern University

Chuck Foster trained as a baritone at Northwestern’s Bienen School of Music before pursuing a career in collaborative piano. Since then, he has become a sought-after collaborator specializing in contemporary music and choral music. He has served as rehearsal and performance pianist for various ensembles including the Chicago Symphony Chorus, the Grant Park Music Festival Chorus, The Crossing, Music of the Baroque, and Stare at the Sun.

Chelsea Lyons

Administrative Assistant

MMus, Northwestern University

Chelsea is the Administrative Assistant for the Office of Choral Organizations and Institute for New Music at the Bienen School of Music.  She provides administrative oversight and support to the Choral Ensembles and Graduate Choral Conducting Program through planning, logistics, leadership of student employees, and serving as the choral librarian.  She also supports the activities of the Institute for New Music, including the Contemporary Music Ensemble, hosting prestigious guest composers and performers, and all aspects of the biennial Northwestern University New-Music Conference (NUNC!). 

In addition to her administrative role, Chelsea is an active professional choral singer. She is a member of Chicago a cappella, the Grant Park Music Festival Chorus, Music of the Baroque, Stare at the Sun, and The Crossing in Philadelphia.  She can be heard on eight of The Crossing’s studio albums, including Born, the 2022 Grammy Winner for Best Choral Performance.  As a concert soloist, Chelsea has performed with Music of the Baroque, Pacific Chorale, Spektral Quartet, Chicago Master Singers, Madison Bach Musicians, and the Green Lake Music Festival.  Her favorite operatic roles have been Cherubino (Le Nozze di Figaro) and Hansel (Hansel & Gretel).  A California native, Chelsea is a graduate of California State University Fullerton (’13) and Northwestern University (MM ’17) and studied voice with Janet Smith, James Toland, W. Stephen Smith, and Karen Brunssen.  Chelsea also serves as a board member of Constellation Men’s Ensemble and is Director of Operations for the new-music choir Stare at the Sun.