Meet Our Headliners

Dr. Hilary Apfelstadt

Dr. Hilary Apfelstadt is Professor Emerita of Choral Studies at the University of Toronto whereshe held the Elmer Iseler Chair in Conducting and received the inaugural Teaching Excellence Award in 2013. Previously she taught at the Ohio State University and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, after receiving her doctorate from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her teaching experiences range from teaching public school to directing community ensembles and church choirs. From 2013 – 2018, she was Artistic Director of Exultate Chamber Singers inToronto. A native Canadian, she has performed with her university choirs at conferences of the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA), and at Podium, the national conference of Choral Canada. She has conducted honors choruses throughout Canada and the U.S., including more than 35 all-state high school choirs. She has directed choral festivals at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, and throughout Europe. A prolific author, she has published numerous articles and book chapters, including contributions to Wisdom, Wit and Will: Women Choral Conductors on their Art (GIA Publications, 2009) and Conducting Successful Women’s Choirs (GIA, 2012). She is co-editor of Teaching Music through Performance in Choir, v.5, published by GIA (2019), and a contributing author to Volume 4 of the same series. Her book on the life and work of Canadian composer Ruth Watson Henderson, I Didn’t Want It To be Boring (Toronto: Prism Publishers) won Choral Canada’s award for the Outstanding Choral Publication in 2018.A Life Member of ACDA, Dr. Apfelstadt served as National President from 2007 - 2009 and as Interim Executive Director from 2020 - 2021. She has received leadership awards from NC-ACDA, Ohio CDA, ACDA Central Region, ACDA Midwestern Region, and Choirs Ontario.

Laura Farnell

Laura Farnell has a passion for making music with singers, working with educators, and creating accessible and artistic choral compositions. After graduating summa cum laude from Baylor University (Waco, TX) with her BME in Choral Music (with a piano emphasis), Laura taught public school for ten years at the elementary and junior high levels. She was honored by her schools with Teacher of the Year awards in 2000 and 2003, and she received an Excellence in Education Award in 2004 as the Arlington ISD's outstanding junior high teacher of the year.

Laura presently lives in Arlington, Texas, and serves as an invited music conference presenter, as well as choral clinician for district, region, and state honor choirs across the country. She has served as a clinician for middle school state-wide honor choirs in Alabama, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, and North Carolina, and has worked with various other elementary through high-school aged honor choirs. As a composer, she especially enjoys writing and arranging music for developing choirs and is represented by several music publishers. She has more than one hundred choral compositions in publication, including many commissioned pieces and a co-authored beginning sight singing method book.

She is a member of the Texas Music Educators Association, Texas Choral Directors Association, the Texas Music Adjudicators' Association, and The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers. She and her husband, Russell, and their two sons, attend First Presbyterian Church of Arlington where Russell serves as Minister of Music and Laura directs the children's and youth choirs.