Dr. Mark Bartel, Artistic Director - 2020–2022

Mark Bartel is in demand as a versatile conductor, collaborator, and educator. A native of Niagara-on-the-Lake, ON, his career has taken him to several cities in the United States and Canada. After a sixteen-year tenure in the United States, he returned to Canada in 2019 to join the faculty at Ambrose University (Calgary, AB) as Associate Professor of Music.  

He has held teaching positions at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Geneva, NY; the University of Western Ontario, London, ON; and Canadian Mennonite University in Winnipeg, MB. In addition to choral ensembles, Dr. Bartel teaches in the areas of conducting, choral pedagogy, applied voice, music history and sacred music. His doctoral research centred upon Baroque musical-rhetorical thought and performance in the choral music of Bohemian composer, Jan Dismas Zelenka. His current research focuses on choirs engaged in active peace-building through the choral experience. 

From 2005–2019, he served as Director of Choral Music at Friends University in Wichita, KS. While in Kansas, he was Artistic Director of the Wichita Community Children’s Choir and the Wichita Chamber Chorale as well as President of the Kansas Chapter of the American Choral Directors Association. He led his choirs on tours throughout the United States, Canada, Germany, Italy, and Costa Rica, and most recently conducted in Vienna with Mid-America Productions and the Symphonisches Orchester Wien.    

Dr. Bartel is sought after as a clinician, presentor, and adjudicator. He is a frequent guest conductor for honour choirs and festivals for singers of all ages, with upcoming engagements in Texas and Kansas. A graduate of the University of Winnipeg and Canadian Mennonite University, he holds the Master of Music and Master of Sacred Music degrees from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, TX, and the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY.