Richard Nance, President
253-840-9776
richardnance9776 at msn.com

Richard Nance, President
Term of Office July 1, 2008 - June 30, 2010

Richard Nance is Director of Choral Activities at Pacific Lutheran University where he has taught since 1992. He is director of The Choir of the West and Choral Union and teaches conducting and courses in secondary music education.  He also observes student teachers.

He holds bachelors and masters degrees from West Texas State University (now West Texas A&M) and the DMA degree from Arizona State University.  Dr. Nance has studied conducting with Hugh Sanders, Douglas McEwen and David Stocker, and studied composition with Joseph Nelson and Randall Shinn. 

He is an active member of the American Choral Directors Association, having served as president for the state of Washington and as the Choral Reviews Editor for the Choral Journal, a publication with 20,000 subscribers worldwide. 

His choirs have appeared at several ACDA conventions and have toured Europe.  Dr. Nance has served as director of music at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church of Lakewood since 1996, and is active as a clinician and adjudicator. 

His choral works are performed around the United States and abroad by school, university, church and community choirs, and are regularly selected for use by festival choirs.  Dr. Nance welcomes the opportunity to write commissioned works, and was selected to compose a piece for the Washington All-State Choir in 2002. He also was commissioned to write the 2002 Raymond Brock Memorial Composition for the American Choral Directors Association.

Solveig Holmquist, President-Elect
holmqus@wou.edu
503-363-5884

Solveig Holmquist, President-Elect
Term of Office (as president) July 1, 2010 - June 30, 2012

Professor of Music Solveig Holmquist, in her twelfth year as Director of Choral Activities at Western Oregon University. Her teaching duties include conducting the Concert Choir and Chamber Singers, providing musical direction for the yearly musicals in collaboration with the department of Theater/Dance, and teaching Conducting, Choral Methods, and Choral Literature. As a certified adjudicator, Holmquist is in demand at numerous clinics, festivals, and contests throughout the Northwest; guest conducting appearances include the Spokane Festival of the Arts, the Colorado Western Region Honor Choir, and the Anchorage High Schools Choral Festival. She made her fourth appearance conducting on the Carnegie Hall stage in February 2007, with WOU Chamber Singers as the core ensemble.
           
Dr. Holmquist is the founder and Artistic Director of the Festival Chorale Oregon, a civic choir in its 28th season which has developed a reputation for musical excellence in Oregon and in the international community.  Festival Chorale Oregon has enjoyed performing tours through Germany, France, Scandinavia, Austria, Switzerland, the Czech Republic and Spain. At home, FCO regularly performs major choral/orchestral works for Willamette Valley audiences.    
           
Dr. Holmquist received her musical training at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, where she sang with the renowned St. Olaf Choir; at Western Oregon State College; and at the University of Oregon.  Her professional affiliations include the American Choral Directors Association, serving as President of the Oregon chapter from 2003-2005 and also as a Repertoire & Standards Chair on the Northwest Board. She was President of Oregon Music Educators National Conference from 1992-1994, and has filled appointments on many committees for both state and national organizations. 

Since 1985, Holmquist has been an auditioned member of the Oregon Bach Festival Chorus, Helmuth Rilling, conductor, and in 1991 was selected to the festival’s conducting master class.  The Oregon Bach Festival Choir won the 2000 Grammy for Best Choral Performance for its premiere recording of “Credo” by Polish composer Krzystof Penderecki; the OBF Choir was subsequently invited to perform the work at the World Symposium of Choral Music in the summer of 2002. In the summer of 2006, the OBF choir and orchestra began a 3-year project which will conclude in 2009, recording the late Haydn masses for Hanssler-Verlag. 

Holmquist was involved in church music for thirty-seven years, most recently serving for fifteen years as Music Director at First Methodist Church in Salem, where she was organist and led a sequential music program that included nine choirs, a summer music camp, youth musicals, a concert series, and a weekly music column.  An accomplished organist, she has been called upon to play dedicatory recitals on several organ installations in the area.

Dr. Holmquist and her husband Jon live in Salem. They have six grown children and ten grandchildren.