Professor
D.Mus, MM Indiana University
BME Florida State University
Conductor Melinda O'Neal is newly appointed artistic director & conductor of the Handel Choir of Baltimore (MD), co-founder and conductor of Sonique, Boston Vocal Artists' ten-voice professional chamber ensemble, and she is professor of music at Dartmouth College (Hanover, NH). From 1979-2004 she was music director and conductor of the Handel Society of Dartmouth College, a student-community oratorio society performing choral and choral-orchestral works with guest vocal artists and the Hanover Chamber Orchestra.
The Handel Society of Dartmouth College under O'Neal's direction performed works including Berlioz's Roméo et Juliette (complete), Vaughan Williams' Dona Nobis Pacem and Schubert's Mass in Eb Major, Haydn's Harmoniemesse, Bach's St. Matthew Passion, to name a few. The ensemble concertized in Austria and Germany, performed a portion of Berlioz's L'enfance du Christ in Carnegie Hall and toured to Toronto, Canada. Projects of special and recent interest include presentation of Berlioz's rarely heard individual songs and choruses such as Vox Populi in 2003, and in partnership with the Dartmouth Medical School, the commission and premiere of The Staff of Aesculapius by Charles Dodge in 2001.
With the Handel Society, O'Neal prepared Mahler's Symphony No. 2, and conducted Poulenc's Gloria and Brahms' Schicksalslied in collaboration with the New Hampshire Symphony Orchestra in Manchester, NH. As chorus master of the New Hampshire Symphony Chorus' performance of Verdi's Requiem, Richard Dyer of the Boston Globe wrote, “The chorus master Melinda O'Neal had trained them to sing everything musically -- there was none of the fancy murmuring and false theatrics that disfigure so many performances of this genuinely dramatic music. Everything they did was clean and honest." Of Monadnock Music's performance of Gluck's Orphée et Eurydice, Richard Binder wrote, "The 12-member chorus, prepared by Melinda O'Neal, was divine. Singing stylishly and with a superb balance both internally and in relation to the [solo] singers, they were one of the evening's highlights." As guest conductor in residence for the Seattle Symphony Orchestra Chorale in 1995, O'Neal prepared Berlioz's La damnation de Faust for Gerard Schwarz.
O'Neal founded and conducted the twelve-voice Groupe Vocale de St. Denis (Hanover, NH) which performed for evensong services and commissioned Musica Dei by Charles Dodge. For seventeen years she conducted the all-undergraduate Dartmouth College Chamber Singers. This 32-voice ensemble presented an annual Feast of Song renaissance music-drama banquet and inaugurated a series of collaborations with the period instrument orchestra Arcadia Players (Amherst, MA), performing vocal-instrumental works by Purcell, Bach, Mozart, Haydn and Handel. Chamber Singers concertized on tour in England, Spain and Germany/Austria as well as America's east coast and midwest Chamber Singers regularly premiered works by Dartmouth faculty and students as part of the music department's New Music Festival.
As a visiting professor in residence (1996-7), O'Neal taught conducting at the doctoral, masters and undergraduate levels at University of Georgia (Athens) where she also conducted the Concert Choir, University Chorus and Camerata. As a visiting professor and conductor at Indiana University (1999), O'Neal conducted the Contemporary Vocal Ensemble and taught and advised graduate conducting students. Dartmouth College students she has taught or advised have continued their studies at Columbia University, Indiana University, University of Illinois, Peabody Institute, and Boston University, to name a few.
In 2004-5 under O'Neal's leadership, the Handel Choir of Baltimore, a newly reconfigured community oratorio ensemble of 40 voices, will be performing baroque and classic style works of Handel, Bach, Mozart and Haydn with a period instrument orchestra, among other projects. Upcoming concerts with BVA's Sonique will include new compositions by Christian Wolff, Charles Dodge, John McDonald and Ileana Perez Velazquez. As a Berlioz specialist, O'Neal gives lectures and workshop demonstrations on his performing his vocal music, and she has published articles on his solo songs and choruses.
O'Neal holds masters and doctoral degrees in choral-orchestral conducting from Indiana University in Bloomington and a bachelors in music education from Florida State University in Tallahassee. She studied score preparation, choral literature and conducting with Julius Herford, Jan Harrington, Fiora Contino, Helmuth Rilling, Robert Shaw, Marcel Couraud, John Nelson and Thomas Dunn. She teaches conducting, studies in music and text, and music theory at Dartmouth College. Her continuing research and performance interests include the relationship of text and music, historical performance practices, and the music of Hector Berlioz. Her articles on Mozart and Berlioz may be located in the Choral Journal, Journal of the Conductors Guild, and Becoming the Complete Conductor (ECS Publishing). O'Neal is a past board member of the Conductors Guild and serves on the research and publications committee of the American Choral Conductors Association.
For more information please visit her website.
