Dr. Anton Armstrong

Berkshire Choral Festival is thrilled to welcome Dr. Anton Armstrong to his first conducting week with the festival. He will conduct Poulenc’s emotionally charged Gloria as well as Te Deums by Rutter and Bizet.

Dr. Armstrong is the conductor of the St. Olaf Choir as well as the Harry R. and Thora H. Tosdal Professor of Music at St. Olaf College. Armstrong became only the fourth director of the St. Olaf Choir in 1990. He also teaches conducting in the Sacred Music department at Luther Seminary.

While growing up on Long Island he and his mother were active singers in a local church choir. Armstrong joined the American Boychoir in Princeton, New Jersey. He has said, “That experience lit my fire for choral singing.”

Armstrong earned his bachelor's degree at St. Olaf College. He was a member of the St. Olaf Choir from 1976-1978, under the leadership of Kenneth Jennings. He attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where he earned a Masters of Music degree and Michigan State University where he completed a Doctorate of Musical Arts.

Twelve years after graduating from St. Olaf, Armstrong replaced Jennings as director of the St. Olaf Choir. He also teaches advanced choral conducting and vocal pedagogy classes that focus on child and adolescent voice. He serves as the artistic director of the St. Olaf Christmas Festival which has become a popular PBS broadcast.

Dr. Armstrong is currently the summer music director of the Youth Choral Academy of the Oregon Bach Festival. He is an editor for Earthsongs Publications and co-editor of Augsburg Fortress Publishers. He has been part of the summer faculty for the American Boychoir for the more than twenty years.

Under Armstrong's direction, the St. Olaf Choir has toured extensively both domestically and abroad. International tours have taken the choir to Australia, New Zealand, Denmark, Austria, France, Germany, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Switzerland, England, and Norway. In May 2005, the choir performed at the National Day of Prayer in front of President & Mrs. Bush in the White House.