A highly gifted and versatile artist, Ira Spaulding has earned a worldwide reputation as a conductor, singer, teacher of master classes in voice and conducting, and leader of choral workshops for the past thirty-five years in over sixty countries. He has conducted the Moscow State Conservatory Chorus, the Belarusian State Philharmonic Choir in Minsk, the Dutch Radio Chorus, as well as choirs from the conservatories of Saigon (Vietnam), Almaty (Kazakhstan), Kiev (Ukraine), Vilnius (Lithuania), Baku (Azerbaijan), Banja Luka (Bosnia), and Guadalajara (Mexico), among others.
Ira is the Music Director of the Hudson Chorale.
Biography
From 1990 to 2008, Mr. Spaulding conducted the Amsterdam-based chamber choir Vocoza, including a concert tour of Germany and Switzerland. This group became known for its challenging programs and variety of styles. He was also an instructor at the Conservatory of Amsterdam for over twenty years. During ten years that he spent as the conductor of the Oratorio Choir of the University of Amsterdam, there was never a repetition of repertoire in twenty concert programs!
Highlights from that tenure include Mendelssohn’s Elijah in the famed Royal Concertgebouw of Amsterdam, Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis, as well as Requiems by Brahms, Verdi, Fauré and Mozart. Mr. Spaulding has also appeared as conductor in the Prokofiev Festival in Donetsk, Ukraine, and in 2007 returned to Moscow at the invitation of Maestro Boris Tevlin to conduct the Moscow State University Chorus in the Great Hall of the Conservatory (also known as the Tchaikovsky Hall) as part of their anniversary program. In 2014, he prepared the Lithuanian chamber choir Aukuras for a concert performance of Porgy and Bess in Lithuania and Latvia, in which he also sang the male solos.
