Maggie Burk

Margaret (Maggie) Burk is a conductor, composer, and vocalist committed to the transformative power of choral music. She is the Director of Choral Activities at Carthage College in Kenosha, Wis., where she oversees the choral area, conducts the Carthage Choir, Lincoln Chamber Singers, and the Carthage Chorale (Vox Ignis), and teaches coursework in conducting and education. In demand nationally as a clinician, she has led All-State and District honor choruses as well as church music festivals in Illinois, Virginia, Washington, D.C., Delaware, North Carolina, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Maggie holds the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Michigan, where she studied with Eugene Rogers. 

While at Michigan, Maggie directed the Arts Chorale and the University Choir; she also served as Assistant Director of the Men’s Glee Club (becoming the first woman in the Club’s 162-year history to hold this title). In addition to her choral work, she led a music workshop titled “Sounds from Within” in conjunction with the Prison Creative Arts Project, where she taught singing, music literacy, and songwriting to incarcerated men. She earned her MM in Choral Conducting from the Yale School of Music/Institute of Sacred Music, where she received the Robert Shaw Prize for choral conducting and the ISM’s Faculty Prize for outstanding academic achievement and community leadership. She holds the Bachelor of Music degree summa cum laude from St. Olaf College in Northfield, MN.

In addition to her academic pursuits, Maggie is an active church musician, professional chorister, and composer. She has served on the faculties of the Conference for Music and Worship at Montreat (North Carolina), the Royal School of Music’s King’s College Course (Wilkes-Barre, Pa.), RSCM’s Midwest Choral Festival (Evansville, Ind.) and the Saint Cecilia Choral Series (Lewes, Del.).

As a composer, Maggie’s works are published by Oxford University Press, Hal Leonard, and Selah Music Publishing and have been heard on BBC Radio 3, at national ACDA conventions, and at churches/universities throughout the United States and the United Kingdom. Recent commissions include “This Holy Hour,” a 25-minute work for harp and SATB choir for Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Portland, OR, and “Recuerdo,” composed for Oxford University Press’s new collection Music for Choir and Cello.

An accomplished choral soprano equally at home in the worlds of early and new music, she sings with professional choirs around the United States, including Audivi (Detroit, MI), Musica Atlantica (Savannah, GA), and the Yale Choral Artists (New Haven, CT). A fierce advocate for music education in public schools, Maggie taught middle and high school choral music in Minnesota and Kansas before her graduate studies. In her spare time, she enjoys cooking, running, CrossFit, hiking, and spending time with her two rescue cats (Leo and Wilma).

• Bachelor of Music degree summa cum laude — St. Olaf College, Northfield, Minn.
• Master of Music in Choral Conducting — Yale School of Music/Institute of Sacred Music, New Haven, Conn.
• Doctor of Musical Arts — University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich.

• Carthage Choir
• Lincoln Chamber Singers
• Carthage Chorale
• Choral Conducting
• Choral Literature

• Oxford University Press, Carols for Choirs 6
• Oxford University Press, Music for Choir and Cello