Music Director & Conductor
New South Festival Singers- Atlanta, Georgia

Position Open: 2025-2026, 41st Concert Season
Contact: Dr. William O. Baker, Founder of the Festival Singers and Director of the Choral Foundation
WBaker@FestivalSingers.org or 913-488-7524

Website: www.NewSouthFestivalSingers.org

The New South Festival Singers is an Atlanta-based 40-voice semi-professional chorale specializing in sacred a cappella classics, new works, spirituals and gospel selections.  The ensemble also performs an annual concert of a choral-orchestral masterwork in the spring of each year.  Past performances have included Bach: Mass in B minor; the Requiems of Brahms, Faure, Durufle, Mozart and others; Kodaly: Laudes Organi; Stravinsky: Mass and Symphony of Psalms; Mozart: Great Mass in C minor, Coronation Mass, and Solemn Vespers; among dozens of other works.  

The New South Festival Singers was founded by William O. Baker in February 1985 as “Gwinnett Festival Singers.”  From 1998-2015 the choir was known as “William Baker Festival Singers Atlanta.”  The present music director, Lynn Swanson, was first appointed in 2015.  Though all singers perform as volunteers for the New South Festival Singers, the majority have professional credentials and vocations in music education, singing and church music leadership.  The Festival Singers has been called “a chorus of professional level expectations where singers are paid with something much more precious than a check.”  

The 40-year history of the Festival Singers has seen many triumphs, including performances across the Southeast and Midwest, England and Wales, regional conferences of the (now) National Association for Music Education, the American Choral Directors Association, and the American Guild of Organists.  The Festival Singers have produced over a dozen nationally-released recordings that have included titles lauded in The American Record Guide and other national publications.  The Festival Singers has been broadcast on numerous local and national radio and television programs, including The Sounds of Majesty, The First Art and National Public Radio’s Performance Today, among others.  The Festival Singers has performed annually to capacity audiences at the Piccolo Spoleto Festival in Charleston since 1989.

The New South Festival Singers is a constituent ensemble of the William Baker Choral Foundation, Inc., a national arts organization headquartered in Roeland Park, Kansas.  The Music Director & Conductor of the New South Festival Singers will be an employee of the Choral Foundation.

The William Baker Choral Foundation was created in Atlanta in 1990 and incorporated the Festival Singers.  The WBCF presents a dozen performing ensembles based in four states, in addition to the Institute for Healthy Singing & Voice Research, the Institute for Choral Creativity, a Choral Scholars program, Choral Conversations Podcast, Amber Waves Music, and the Jane Sullivan Choral Resource Library, one of the largest in the nation. www.ChoralFoundation.org

Rehearsals of the Festival Singers are conducted Tuesday evenings, September-May, in the Sandy Springs area.

Qualifications: Master of Music; Master of Music Education; Master of Church Music or equivalent experience.

Compensation: Competitive in consideration of qualifications and experience.

Application Process begins with a letter of interest, resume/curriculum vitae, concert programs and recorded examples of performances.  Applications and support materials may be sent by email to WBaker@FestivalSingers.org or by postal mail to:

Dr. William Baker
William Baker Choral Foundation Center
5450 Buena Vista Street, #100
Roeland Park, KS  66205

Please note that materials sent by postal mail will not be returned.  Photocopies are acceptable.

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