ABOUT
Aaron Peisner is dedicated to making honest and thoughtful music through his work as a conductor, singer, and educator. He serves as Assistant Professor of Music and Director of Choral Activities at University of North Carolina Wilmington, where he conducts the Concert Choir, Chamber Choir, and Opera Workshop, and teaches courses in aural skills, choral methods and repertoire, and voice. Dr. Peisner is the artistic director and conductor of the Cape Fear Chorale, a community choir based in Wilmington, NC. Prior to working at UNCW, Dr. Peisner served as Interim Director of Choirs at Goucher College in Towson, MD, and assistant conductor for the University Singers at Catholic University of America in Washington, DC.
During his DMA coursework at the University of Maryland, Dr. Peisner served as assistant conductor of the University of Maryland Chamber Singers during the 2017-2018 season, preparing the ensemble for collaborations with major orchestras and conductors, including performances of the Mozart Requiem with Marin Alsop and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Handel’s Messiah with the National Symphony Orchestra and guest conductor Jeannette Sorrell, and John Adams’ The Gospel According to the Other Mary with the National Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Gianandrea Noseda. He also served as the conductor of the University of Maryland Chorale and the University of Maryland Summer Chorus, as well as the chorus master for the Maryland Opera Studio, preparing the chorus for their role in Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito and Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites.
A professional bass-baritone, Dr. Peisner has sung with hexaCollective, the Washington Master Chorale, the choir at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, the San Francisco Choral Artists, Polyhymnia (NYC), and Yale Schola Cantorum.
Dr. Peisner has a wide array of research interests, including applying critical pedagogy to choral rehearsals, Spanish Renaissance polyphony, Kurt Weill's Das Berliner Requiem for men's chorus and wind band, and Georgian and Bulgarian vocal music.
Dr. Peisner holds a Doctorate of Musical Arts in choral conducting from the University of Maryland, where he received the Daniel L. Pomeroy Prize for outstanding work in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century music. He earned a Master of Music degree in choral conducting from the Yale School of Music and a Bachelor of Arts in music from Wesleyan University. Dr. Peisner has studied conducting with Edward Maclary, James Ross, Marguerite Brooks, Jeffrey Douma, David Hill, Masaaki Suzuki, Kenneth Kiesler, and Neely Bruce.
