Nym Cooke has been leading choruses, choirs, and community singings for almost thirty years.
He received his B.A. magna cum laude from Harvard College and studied choral conducting at Boston University's School for the Arts before beginning American music history studies with Richard Crawford at the University of Michigan (Ph.D., 1990). His scholarly specialty has been the sacred choral music of late 18th-century New England, and with a number of major publications to his credit he is now recognized internationally as one of the preeminent authorities on this subject.
He has taught music history and theory at the College of the Holy Cross, Brandeis University, and Assumption College, and has served as Music Director for the Revels organization in three Midsummer Revelses and one Christmas Revels.
He currently directs two community choruses (Quinebaug Valley Singers and The Band of Voices) and two church choirs in central Massachusetts, and is increasingly sought after both as a choral conductor and as the director of pit bands for musical theater productions (The Wizard of Oz and West Side Story in 2003).
He is an accomplished choral arranger and editor whose Christmas carol collection, Awake to Joy!, is currently in its third printing. For the past two decades he has led participatory singings from this collection and from an unpublished collection of 19th-century American songs.
His second CD with The Band of Voices, a collection of carols, songs, and rounds for the Winter Solstice, Christmas, and Hanukkah titled The Longest Night, will be released in October.
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