Dr. David McConnell ~ Artistic Director
Dr. David A. McConnell founded Vox Philia in 2012 as an intergenerational chamber choir made up of professional and gifted amateur singers. The choir’s first three seasons focused almost exclusively on music by living composers, featuring over a dozen local and world premieres, as well as a newly-commissioned Christmas carol in December 2014. The choir’s performances have garnered considerable acclaim for thematic programming and musical excellence.
In the summer of 2014, Dr. McConnell co-founded Berks Sinfonietta, a chamber orchestra that also utilizes an intergenerational approach, bringing professional Reading players together with gifted students in both high school and college. Highlights of the first season include well-regarded performances of Dvorak’s Symphony No. 6 and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 2, both conducted by McConnell.
Dr. McConnell teaches Introduction to Western and World Music classes at Pennsylvania State University, Berks Campus. He also teaches group and private piano and organ lessons at Alvernia University in Reading. David currently serves as Director of Music at Grace Lutheran Church in Lancaster, where he plays for weekly liturgies and conducts the Senior Choir.
Dr. McConnell received his Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music in December 2002. His teachers at Cincinnati included Earl Rivers, John Leman, Richard Westenberg and Vance George. A native of Philadelphia, Dr. McConnell also holds degrees from Westminster Choir College in Princeton, New Jersey and Temple University in Philadelphia. He has attended the prestigious Pierre Monteux School for Conductors and Orchestral Musicians in Hancock, Maine, the South Carolina Conductor's Institute in Columbia, South Carolina, and The Conductors Institute at Bard College.
Dr. McConnell's has presented papers at the national American Choral Directors Association in San Antonio, Texas and the College Music Society Northeast Chapter Conference in Lewiston, Maine. Articles by Dr. McConnell have appeared in journals of the International Federation of Choral Music, the American Choral Director’s Association, the Conductors’ Guild and the American Beethoven Society. He has written a chapter on Beethoven’s early Piano Concerto in E-flat for inclusion in a book being published about Beethoven’s time in Bonn.
In recent years, Dr. McConnell has conducted choirs in Portugal, The Netherlands, and Latvia, as well as throughout the northeastern United States.