Fanfare Contributor Bio
William Kempster
I have been a devotee of classical music my entire life, and have been a High School music teacher, a University Professor (Doctor of Music in Choral Conducting), as well as a professional conductor during my career, conducting performances in 14 countries. I have also had extensive experience as an audio editor engineer, musicologist, writer, composer, and music editor. In the course of my career so far - based out of three countries (Australia, Canada, and the United States) - I have organized and directed choirs on 10 international tours, winning major prizes in Ireland, the Czech Republic, Germany, Austria, and Poland, and I am the only conductor in the world who has advanced two different choirs from two different countries to the final stage of the world's most prestigious Chamber Choir competition, held biannually in Marktoberdorf, Germany. I have released 15 compact discs with six different ensembles featuring repertoire from the 15th to the 21st centuries, recordings which include over 50 world premières. In September 2020, I completed a life-long project of editing the complete works of Renaissance composer Pierre de la Rue, and this 2600 page edition is now available online. I am currently finalizing a book on the choral music of Australian composer Ross Edwards entitled "A Singular Voice: The Choral Music of Ross Edwards." I was also the conductor, composer, and arranger of the 30 minutes of music commissioned by HBO for their prize-winning immersive production based on Game of Thrones at the SXSW Festival in Austin, TX in March 2019.