Dr. Pearl Shangkuan is a highly sought-after conductor, lecturer and clinician who has led performances and workshops across six continents. Director of Choral Activities and Professor of Music at Calvin University in Grand Rapids, Michigan, she is also chorus director of the Grand Rapids Symphony, a Grammy-nominated professional orchestra.
Shangkuan has a signature choral series with earth songs and is the music editor of the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship Choral series published by GIA. In 2014, she made her conducting debut at Carnegie Hall and was an invited guest lecturer at the World Symposium for Choral Music held in Seoul, South Korea. Dr. Shangkuan has served on the jury of several international choral competitions in Europe and Asia and has led conducting masterclasses for the ACDA national conference, Chorus America, the University of Michigan and the University of Illinois Choral Conducting Symposium among many institutions and organizations in the US.
She has conducted numerous All-State honor choirs, ACDA division honor choirs, and choral festivals nationally and internationally and has headlined several ACDA state conferences. She served as president of the ACDA Central Division and Michigan ACDA and has commissioned and premiered numerous choral works. Her choirs have performed at ACDA national, division and state conferences. In 2013, Michigan ACDA honored her with the Maynard Klein Choral Award for “artistic excellence and lifetime leadership in choral music”.
