Conducting Intern

In 2002, the Orange County Women’s Chorus launched its Conducting Internship program, an annual opportunity offered to a promising young woman entering the field of choral conducting. The internship may be renewed once, at the discretion of the Artistic Director. Since conducting continues to be a largely male-dominated field, and since it is traditionally difficult for aspiring conductors to gain experience at their craft, this paid internship is an important and innovative contribution to the musical community, and choruses across the country have used our program as a model for their own internship opportunities. Our conducting interns have come from the University of California, Irvine; California State University-Fullerton; and Chapman University. Past conducting interns are now conducting choirs in schools, churches, synagogues and communities—and sometimes in all of the above! A former intern describes her experience this way:

“The Orange County Women's Chorus provided me with the unique opportunity to serve as their Conducting Intern during my years as a graduate student at the University of California, Irvine. This internship offers a young female conductor the chance to regularly rehearse a professional-class chorus, experiment with warm-up exercises, and conduct in concert three or more times during a season. The OCWC performs such a wonderfully diverse and challenging collection of repertoire, I found that to be the most fascinating and valuable aspect of serving as intern. It was quite special to have the opportunity to study and sing rarely performed works for women's choruses and also have the opportunity to premiere new works that the ensemble had commissioned. The Artistic Director of the OCWC is an incredibly intelligent musician and a terrific role model. I felt inspired by her and certainly believe that my current conducting style and rehearsal practices have been positively influenced by her. The Conducting Internship offered by the OCWC is an extremely valuable educational experience and I enthusiastically support its continuation.”

We are proud to introduce our 2009-2010 conducting intern, Ariel May.