For the first time in years, Women’s Chorale has a conductor devoted solely to leading the group.
Paul Mayhew, a new assistant professor of music education at Ohio University, will be serving as the group’s conductor. Mayhew came to OU after leaving a similar position at Heidelberg University in Tiffin.
Mayhew, who has a salary of $52,000 per year and a five-year contract, said he wanted to take the job at OU because it is what he called a “combination job” — that is, Mayhew conducts Women’s Chorale and teaches music education classes. In Spring Semester, Mayhew will also begin conducting the Choral Union, a community choir with both OU and Athens members .
The ability to both conduct choirs and teach students who aspire to become music teachers, Mayhew said, goes hand in hand.
“I don’t want to teach about it if I’m still not (conducting),” Mayhew explained.
Mayhew taking over Women’s Chorale provides stability to a program that has not always had a concrete leader. Graduate student Christian Lindsey led the group for the last two years and Steven Huang, the symphony orchestra conductor, directed the group before that, including several other graduate students.
With the constant turnover between conductors, Mayhew said he has a chance to help the group develop a sense of identity, much like the Singing Men of Ohio have done.
“We have an all men’s choir that has a strong identity and is well-known,” Mayhew said. “I’d like us to have a women’s choir that has a strong identity and is equally well-known.”
Julia Wiget, a senior and president of the Women’s Chorale executive board, said Mayhew does in fact provide a sense of stability to the choir and a style of organization that had previously been lacking.
“It’s nice to have the same techniques (and) someone that’s readily able to help students,” Wiget said. “With a student teacher, they’re learning as well as teaching.”
Stephen Sanders, a student of Mayhew’s and a senior studying choral music education, said he agreed.
“You want someone that knows the system so that they don’t have to relearn it,” Sanders said. “They don’t have to spend the first half of the year learning the system in order to work it.”
Mayhew said he also took the job at OU because he hoped to give back to his profession.
“It’s something that I thought a lot more about and I knew I wanted to train teachers,” Mayhew said. “Seventeen years of experience (in public education) gives me some things to say.”
ds834910@ohiou.edu
