Conductor, tenor, teacher
Murray Kidd, Artistic Director
From an early age, Murray Kidd has had an innovative and bold nature in the world of music. While in college, he produced his first gala event for the 60th Anniversary of the Beta Pi Chapter of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, a music fraternity at University of the Pacific in Stockton, CA. Currently, Kidd serves as music director for Polymnia Choral Society and is director of the Chamber Singers and University Choir at University of Massachusetts at Lowell. For UMASS Lowell, he collaborated with PBS when his University Choir joined Keith Lockhart and the Boston Pops in a DVD recording of Handel’s Messiah Rocks composed/arranged by Jason Howland. This DVD premiered in August of 2009 on a national broadcast of PBS and has been nationally released by Sony. The Chamber Singers and University Choir recently performed for the 125th anniversary of the Catholic Diocese of New Hampshire. In December of 2011, Kidd will direct the entire choral department and world music ensemble at UMASS in a performance of Misa Criolla by Ariel Ramirez and Missa Luba by Father Guido Haazen.
Kidd is a professional musician of the highest caliber. He has had a long association with the Handel & Haydn Society and Boston Baroque performing with such conductors as Harry Christophers, Christopher Hogwood, Seiji Ozawa, Sir Roger Norrington, Robert Spano, Jane Glover, John Finney, Grant Llewellyn, Daniel Beckwith, Giselle Ben-Dor, and Martin Pearlman. He performed with the Grammy Award winning Orpheus Chamber Orchestra at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in a concert of Bach Cantatas where his role was the 'leader of the chorales.' Murray Kidd has also been soloist for many of Boston’s most distinguished organizations, including: the Handel & Haydn Society, Boston Baroque, Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra, North Shore Philharmonic, Musicians of the Old Post Road, Opera Boston, Chorus Pro Musica and many others. He has taken part in some of the world’s most prestigious festival’s including: BBC Proms in London, Tanglewood in Massachusetts, Ravinia in Chicago, All-Beethoven Festival in Poland, Edinburgh Festival in Scotland, and the Casals Festival in Puerto Rico.
Most recently, Kidd was appointed to be Assistant Director of the Wellesley College Chamber Music Conference at the Composers Conference.
In October of 2009, Mr. Kidd founded the Boston Singers' Relief Fund. The Fund was created to act as a financial safety net for professional singers in New England. Website: www.provocal.org Over 40 professional singers gathered their voices to participate in The Singers' Voice, a gala concert, to help singers in need.
As a voice teacher, Mr. Kidd is known for his effective and direct vocal method. He is a proponent of the Bel Canto school of singing and has studied with Neil Semer, Brett Johnson, Susan Clickner and Carol Mastrodomenico. His studios at New England Conservatory School of Preparatory and Continuing Education, UMASS/Lowell, and a very active private studio are bastions of vocal technique where singers come to perfect and heal their craft. His approach has helped students achieve prizes in NATS-Boston Song Festivals and other competitions around the country. Past and present students are currently involved with organizations such as the Handel & Haydn Society, State University of New York-TISH, Eastman School of Music, Ithaca College, Tanglewood Festival, Michigan University Musical Theatre Program, Cleveland Institute of Music, and many others. His students include professionals, amateurs and gifted high school singers in the Greater Boston Area.
As one of Boston’s leading authorities in art song repertoire, Mr. Kidd created the Song Recital Workshop at the New England Conservatory Summer School. The Workshop is devoted to the art song repertoire and focuses on musicianship, vocal technique, diction, music history, and poetry. Over the years, the class performed over 300 songs by the great masters of art song, including Beethoven, Schubert, and Schumann, and also commissioned a new song cycle by Boston composer, John Ferguson. In 2010, he was a nominee for the Jean Stackhouse Award for Teaching. Kidd has taught Song Literature at Eastern Nazarene College and Atlantic Union College over the past eleven years, as well as Vocal Pedagogy and 20th Century Music History.
He is conductor of the Chamber Singers, University Choir and, formerly, the Choral Union at University of Massachusetts at Lowell where he received the Excellence in Education award for the Music Department in 2010. Mr. Kidd was a Conducting Fellow at the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival. He studied conducting with Dr. William Dehning at University of the Pacific and he completed his master’s degree at New England Conservatory where he studied Song Literature with Craig Smith, Nico Castel, and Martin Isepp, as well as Historic Performance Practice with Daniel Pinkham. Currently, he teaches conducting in addition to his duties with ensembles.
Mr. Kidd is a member of NATS, MENC, ACDA, Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia and is a Choral Liaison for the Handel and Haydn Society of Boston. He is also on the Board of Directors for the Boston Singers' Resource and a former director for NATS - Boston.