UUCUC welcomes M.R. as our new Choir Director. M.R. brings a sense of laughter and fun to their rehearsals, and believes in welcoming all voices and supporting everyone from novice to expert on their singing journey. They’ll be a great addition to our UUCUC staff team in the coming church year!

M.R. will assume their position on August 16th and their tenure as choir director will continue through June 2023.

M.R. (they/them) is in their fourth year of study as a PhD student in Music Education and a graduate teaching assistant at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. M.R. holds a Master of Arts in Teaching from Rider University in Lawrenceville, New Jersey and a Bachelor of Music in Music Education from Westminster Choir College in Princeton, New Jersey. While earning these degrees, M.R. led choral rehearsals, general music classes, and Bible study at the Albert C. Wagner Youth Correctional Facility, instructing at the maximum-security unit on site. Upon graduation, M.R. taught general music classes, voice lessons, and directed the chamber singers at Parkland College.

M.R.’s research topics include questioning notions of safety for gender expansive choral music teachers, inclusion and safety for transgender and gender expansive choral music students, and their current scholarship aims to explore the experiences of transgender, both binary and non-binary, music teachers in the classroom.

If you have any questions please feel free to email M.R. at director-choir(at)uucuc.org