QU Music Department Welcomes New Director of Choirs
Quincy University Music Department is excited to welcome Kristin Ramseyer, M.M., as the new director of choirs and assistant professor of voice. She is a Doctor of Musical Arts candidate at the University of Iowa, where she worked as a teaching assistant in choral conducting, sang with the premier choral ensemble, Kantorei and studied conducting with Timothy Stalter, D.M.A., and voice with John Muriello, D.M.A.
From fall 2015 to spring 2017, she worked as assistant instructional faculty in the School of Music at Illinois State University, where she taught voice, directed the Women’s Choir, now Treble Choir and served on the staff of the School of Theatre and Dance and The School of Music’s joint productions of Street Scene and 1776. In May 2015, she completed dual master’s degrees in choral conducting and voice performance at Illinois State University, where she studied conducting with Karyl Carlson, D.M.A., and voice with John Koch.
After earning her Bachelor of Music Education from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign in 2003, Ramseyer spent the first ten years of her career, teaching chorus at Jeffrey C. Still Middle School in Aurora, Ill. and Round Lake Senior High School in Round Lake, Ill., where she co-directed and accompanied several musicals including Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, Jane Eyre, Little Shop of Horrors, Into the Woods, Urinetown, and Jekyll and Hyde.
Ramseyer is an active soprano soloist. In the fall of 2018, she was a soloist in the University of Iowa Symphony Orchestra and Choir’s performance of Haydn’s Missa in tempore belli. Her operatic and musical theatre performances include Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortilèges, the premiere of Griffin Candey’s Sweets by Kate, Bizet’s Carmen, Britten’s Midsummer Nights Dream, the premiere of Nicola Jane Buttigieg’s Beethoven in Vienna, and Schwartz’s Children of Eden.
Ramseyer has also enjoyed serving as a clinician, guest conductor and adjudicator at various district festivals, solo and ensemble contests, organization contests and church choir festivals over the years. She was the music director at The Congregational Church, United Church of Christ, in Iowa City, where she has conducted J.S. Bach’s Wachet auf ruft uns die Stimme, BWV 140, Alice Parker’s An Easter Rejoicing, and Vivaldi’s Gloria, RV 589.
Founded in 1860 by Franciscan friars, Quincy University is a small Catholic university emphasizing the sciences, liberal arts and the professions. Quincy University offers undergraduate, graduate and adult education programs integrating practical experience and Franciscan values. Faculty and advisors work with students to design customized success plans to help them graduate on time, find their passion and prepare them for life. QU is a member of NCAA Division II for intercollegiate athletics. For more information, please visit www.quincy.edu or contact the Office of Community Relations at (217) 228-5275 or communityrelations@quincy.edu. Quincy University. Success by Design.
