Artistic Staff

David Schildkret

David Schildkret, conductor, has served as Music Director of the Chorale since 1999 and conducted his first concerts with the group in the summer of 2000. His varied conducting experience includes leading various groups at Arizona State University, including the Desert Gold Chorale, the Choral Union, and the Barrett Honors College Choir. For six years, he led the highly select Chamber Singers at Arizona State University, which he took to an ACDA convention in 2008, the first such appearance by an ASU choir in 15 years. He has conducted such major choral-orchestral works as Handel's Messiah, Bach's B-Minor Mass, Bloch's Sacred Service, Orff's Carmina Burana, the Requiems of Brahms, Mozart, and Fauré, and Mendelssohn's Elijah. Equally at home with chorus and orchestra, he has also led performances of the standard symphonic repertory and such works as Leonard Bernstein's Jeremiah.

Schildkret is a member of the board of the National Collegiate Choral Organization (NCCO) and has served as Repertory and Standards Chair for Four-Year Colleges and Universities in the Arizona chapter of the American Choral Directors Association

Schildkret is a member of the board of the National Collegiate Choral Organization (NCCO) and has served as Repertory and Standards Chair for Four-Year Colleges and Universities in the Arizona chapter of the American Choral Directors Association.
He has taught and conducted overseas, including work at Keimyung University in Daigu, South Korea, at at the University of the Andes in Merida, Venezuela as a Fulbright Senior Fellow. His work in Merida has included performances with several of the city’s choirs and with the state orchestra.

Schildkret, a conductor, scholar, performer, and educator, was born in Brooklyn, New York, and grew up in southern New Jersey. He holds the Master and Doctor of Music degrees in Choral Conducting from Indiana University, where he studied with Robert Porco and George Buelow. He holds the Bachelor of Arts degree in Music from Rutgers University in New Jersey. In addition to his work at Arizona State University and Salem College, he has taught at the University of Rochester in New York and Centre College in Danville, Kentucky.

Schildkret is also Director of Music at Scottsdale United Methodist Church in Scottsdale, Arizona. A sought-after clinician, he has conducted choirs at all levels and served as Music Director for the Finger Lakes Symphony Orchestra in upstate New York for eight seasons. His published articles include essays on the music of Mozart, Bach, and Handel and several articles on choral conducting. He is the founding editor of The Choral Scholar, the NCCO's online journal.

A frequent lecturer and guest speaker, he has appeared at Acadia Senior College and offered a lecture series at the Phoenix Art Museum. This series explored the ways that artists, musicians, and composers use gardens as settings in their work.

Clayton W. Smith

In addition to playing for the choruses of Hampden Academy, he also accompanies the Downeast Singers of Camden and the Oratorio Society and Opera Workshop of the University of Maine at Orono. This Fall, he will conduct the students of Brewer Youth Theatre in his 12th season as Music Director.

Mr. Smith's arrangements were used for the MPBN documentary "Remember the Maine," and he has created scores for silent films for Northeast Historic Film of Bucksport, ME. He is also the founding director of an American ensemble called The Bon-Ton Salon Orchestra, which recreates turn-of-the-century concerts featuring sing-alongs, marches and ragtime.