James A. Carpenter joined the Monteverdi Chorale as Artistic Director in January 2002. A native of Burlington, Vermont, he received his undergraduate education at Ithaca College, in Ithaca, New York, majoring in choral music education and voice. He went on to study with the late Robert Fountain at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he received the Master of Music degree in choral conducting.
Mr. Carpenter began his career as an educator in the public schools of Wisconsin and Florida, teaching choral and general music in grades K-12. In 1988 he joined the faculty of Mount Holyoke College, in South Hadley, Massachusetts, where he conducted choirs and taught classes in musicianship and conducting. Mount Holyoke choirs under his direction performed annually in New York City, and toured throughout the eastern United States. He also conducted yearly performances of major choral-orchestral works on the Mount Holyoke campus.
Mr. Carpenter has extensive experience with church and community choirs. He has served Methodist, Lutheran, and United Church of Christ congregations in Wisconsin, Florida, and Massachusetts, in addition to conducting Catholic and Protestant chapel choirs at Mount Holyoke College. He was Assistant Conductor of the Winter Park Bach Festival Chorus, in Winter Park, Florida, and Conductor of the Springfield Symphony Chorus, in Springfield, Massachusetts.
Mr. Carpenter has taught a variety of courses at UW-Stevens Point as an adjunct lecturer, including Concert Choir, Choral Union, Women’s Choir, Choral Literature, Choral Conducting, Music Education Methods, History of American Popular Music, and Music Theory for Theatre Performers. He appeared as Guest Conductor with the Central Wisconsin Symphony Orchestra in December 2009. He is a member of the American Choral Directors Association, the International Federation for Choral Music, and the College Music Society, and has served on the Executive Board of the Wisconsin Choral Directors Association.
