Alan Heatherington
Music Director
Alan Heatherington has built his career in the Chicago metropolitan area as a violinist/concertmaster, an orchestral and choral conductor, and an educator. So distinguished are his accomplishments that the Chicago Tribune recently named him a Chicagoan of the Year for 2004. The Illinois Council of Orchestras has awarded him the title of Conductor of the Year for 2005.
Few conductors are as accomplished at conducting both choruses and orchestras. Maestro Heatherington is the founder and Music Director of the Ars Viva Symphony Orchestra (1995 - present), composed primarily of Chicago Symphony Orchestra musicians; he was appointed Music Director of the Lake Forest Symphony in 2000; and he is Music Director and Conductor of the Chicago Master Singers, a 140-voice chorus, and its 40-voice Chorale.
Heatherington has been Music Director of the Chicago Master Singers (formerly The New Oratorio Singers) since 1989. This auditioned chorus performs major choral/orchestral works as well as a cappella repertoire. Recent performances include the Bach St. John Passion and St. Matthew Passion and works of Mendelssohn, Brahms, Verdi, Beethoven, Mozart and Rachmaninoff. The Chicago Master Singers tours extensively in Europe. It has issued four CDs: Masters in this Hall; Psalms, Hymns and Spiritual Songs; The Wearin’ of the Green (English and Irish folk songs) and A Christmas Collection.
He was the founding Music Director of the Chicago String Ensemble (1979-1995). John von Rhein of the Chicago Tribune wrote: “The Chicago String Ensemble is the city’s only professional string orchestra and one of the finest groups of its kind in the nation.” The Chicago String Ensemble can be heard on the highly acclaimed Centaur CD, Israeli Melodies.
He was the founding Artistic Director and conductor of the annual Innsbruck International Choral Festival for four years. He was the Director of Music Ministries at the First Presbyterian Church of Lake Forest (1995-2003) as well as Director of the Anshe Emet Synagogue professional choir (1992-2000) that can be heard on a collection of compact discs of Jewish High Holy Days music with Hazzan Alberto Mizrahi.
He has conducted and/or played with virtually all the major orchestras in Chicago for over three decades, has taught at various colleges and universities for more than twenty years, and has conducted choral concerts in many of the major cultural capitals of Europe, including London, Paris, Vienna, Salzburg, Berlin, Munich, Zurich, Rome, Prague and Budapest. He continues his commitment to education through regular engagements as guest conductor/clinician with area university and community orchestras. He and his wife Gayle, a vocalist who works professionally in arts management, live in Libertyville.