Seraphim’s search for a music director to succeed founding director Jennifer Lester yielded three talented and promising candidates. Each will conduct one concert in Seraphim’s 2024-2025 season. The three are featured below in order of the concerts they will conduct.

Daniel Parsley

Eternal Voices and Sacred Landscapes
November 9 & 10, 2024

Daniel Parsley enjoys an active career as a conductor, educator, scholar, and professional chorister. Daniel is Director of Choral Activities and Director of Graduate Conducting Programs at the historic School of Music at Boston University, the oldest degree-granting music program in the United States. At BU, Daniel oversees the comprehensive MM, MSM, and DMA conducting programs, teaches graduate conducting and choral literature, and leads the BU Singers and Symphonic Choir. Daniel was most recently the Director of Choral Activities and Program Head at Thomas More University in the Cincinnati area. At Thomas More, he founded and directed three choruses that included over 125 singers and taught music history and music theory. Daniel currently serves as associate conductor for the National Children’s Chorus. While in Cincinnati, he was associate director for the Cincinnati Youth Choir, Ensemble-in-Residence at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.

Since 2019, Daniel has served as associate conductor of the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra (CCO). At the CCO, he leads the We Are One series, special events such as the Walk with Amal project, and assists with an annual Summermusik festival. In 2023, Daniel made his guest conductor debut with the Portland Symphony Orchestra and renowned professional recording ensemble Coro Volante. Most recently, Daniel was the assistant conductor and choral conducting fellow for the Cincinnati May Festival, where he prepared choruses for the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and Cincinnati Pops. Daniel’s passion for choral arts extends beyond conducting: He has performed with many choruses as a professional singer, including the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus, Cincinnati May Festival Chorus and Youth Chorus, Toledo Opera, Tuscia Opera Festival (Viterbo, Italy), and Berkshire Choral Festival. As a conductor of symphonic choral literature, Parsley has most recently prepared choruses for John Morris Russell, Gerhardt Zimmermann, James Meena, and Giordano Bellincampi.

Parsley has enjoyed a wide breadth of diverse professional experiences globally ranging anywhere from roles as a research fellow in Ghana, West Africa through the Edward Brueggeman Center for Dialogue to engagements with the National Chorus of Korea in Seoul. Upcoming engagements, masterclasses, and residencies include the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München, the University of British Columbia, and the ISSEA Choral Festival in Maputo, Mozambique. He has served as faculty for the Kentucky Institute of International Studies (KIIS) Salzburg Study Abroad Program and Cooperative Center for Study Abroad (CCSA) London summer study abroad since 2013.

A Cincinnati native, Parsley completed a Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA) in Choral Conducting with a cognate in orchestral conducting at the University of Cincinnati-College Conservatory of Music (CCM). Daniel also holds a M.M. in Choral Conducting from Bowling Green State University and a B.M. Voice Performance and B.A. International Studies with concentrations in economics and history from Xavier University. In 2019, Daniel was selected as one of four finalists for the 2019 American Choral Directors’ Association National Graduate Conducting Competition held in Kansas City. Parsley has studied conducting under Robert Porco, Earl Rivers, Brett Scott, AikKhai Pung, Mark Munson, and Tom Merrill.

Parsley’s current research interest focuses on the integration of Body Mapping, a method of instruction typically reserved for the private studio, in conducting pedagogy and the overall choral rehearsal. Recent scholarly publications include a curriculum guide for collegiate educators to apply Body Mapping techniques in ensemble rehearsals. Daniel is currently a Body Mapping Educator Affiliate with Andover Educators.

Daniel was most recently the Music in Worship Chair for the Ohio Choral Director’s Association. He currently serves as music director at First Parish Unitarian Universalist of Arlington. Daniel is an active member of ACDA, ChorusAmerica, AGO and NAfME.

Simon Andrews

Aspects of Light
March 8 & 9, 2025

Simon Andrews is an English composer-conductor living in Massachusetts. As a composer, he is earning a reputation as a creator of eloquent concert music that blends harmonic complexity and lyricism, introversion and broad gestures, delicate timbres and bold statements. His output ranges from large-scale orchestral works and opera to intimate chamber music, with a special delight in chamber music with solo voices. Winner of the 1985 Benjamin Britten Prize, his music has been commissioned, performed and recorded by the London Symphony Orchestra, The Janacek Philharmonic, the Britten-Pears Orchestra, the Berkeley Symphony, the Lancaster Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, the Cypress Quartet, and Catalyst New Music and many others.

His edition-completion of Süssmayr’s contribution to the Mozart Requiem has been performed to critical acclaim in England and America, and led to an accompanying book: Mozart’s Requiem: from 18th century forgery to modern hybrid.

A CD of his chamber music And that moment when the bird sings came out in 2017, the title track of which was described as ‘a clarinet quintet of lyrical impulse.’ (Gramophone). Another track, The heart has narrow banks was praised as “an art song par excellence. Gentle, intimate and subtle…” (SCI Newsletter) His Till voices wake us was recently recorded by the Janacek Philharmonic and will receive its American première in April 2025 by the Lowell Chamber Orchestra.

Before moving to Massachusetts he maintained a lively career as a choral conductor at Franklin & Marshall College, the Harrisburg Choral Society, Millersville University, Harrisburg Opera Chorus, and various churches, and worked with opera companies on both coasts, Berkeley Opera (now West Edge Opera), Berkeley Contemporary Opera, North Bay Opera, Concert Opera of Philadelphia and Opera Lancaster. He is currently organist at First Parish in Concord MA.

Jessie Pierpont

Light in the Treasure Trove
May 3 & 4, 2025

Jessica Pierpont is the Artistic Director, Founder and Conductor of the Vermont Academy of Choral Music since 2016 and Director of Choral Activities at Vermont State University- Johnson. She began her academic teaching career having worked for six years as a conductor, educator, professional singer, scholar and also numerous collegiate, professional and community ensembles throughout the United States and Canada. She frequently works as a guest conductor and clinician for workshops, clinics, choirs and orchestras. Under her direction her ensembles have toured Canada, the US and have been selected to perform around the continental United States.

During her time teaching elementary and middle school general music in 2016, she founded Vermont Academy of Choral Music where the Vermont Chamber Artists and Vermont Girls Choir was born. She designed academic courses and a virtual lecture series, called 4ward Voices during the COVID-19 pandemic. 4ward Voices was a virtual platform for education and discussion that brought to consciousness important issues, historical musical examples, innovative ideas and teaching techniques, and workshops, all cultivating a strong foundation through music. This lecture series included choral conductors, teachers, directors, advocates, and inspirational speakers from all around the world. This series allowed students and musicians to continue learning and making important musical connections through a choral platform while also creating various musical opportunities once the pandemic subsided.

Jessica held a position at McGill University, as a course lecturer teaching choral conducting to undergraduate students from 2020-2022. During her appointments at McGill University and Director of Choral Activities position at Johnson (VSU) she has taught courses and masterclasses in conducting, music history, vocal methods and pedagogy, and has been a guest artist and lecturer with various academic institutions and choral organizations. Additionally, in her appointment at Johnson she has designed academic courses that allowed students to travel to Montréal and explore links between choral conducting, choral singing, teaching and programming to enhance leadership amongst singers and choral conductors.

Dr. Pierpont remains an active professional choral singer with focuses in chant, Baroque, Renaissance, and Modern eras. She has sung with various professional vocal ensembles such as ProCoro in Edmonton Alberta and in Montréal, Les Rugissants, Bach Festival of Montréal, Voces Borealis and The Church of Saint Andrew and Saint Paul. In addition, she has attended and participated in many music workshops for both conducting and singing, including Oxford University Workshops, Westminster Choir College summer workshops, Yale University 21C, ACDA regional collegiate workshops, Beyond the Baton with Diane Wittry and was selected as a conducting fellow in the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival hosted by the Yale School of Music.

Dr. Pierpont received her Bachelor of the Arts in Piano Performance from Castleton University, studying conducting under Dr. Sherrill Blodget. She received her Master of Music degree in choral conducting at the University of Arizona and was the graduate assistant of the Arizona Choir under Dr. Bruce Chamberlain. She earned her Doctor of Music in Choral Conducting from McGill University graduating with a 4.0 GPA under Dr. Jean-Sébastian Vallée and Dr. Hilary Apfelstadt. Her areas of research include the evolution of treble choirs, the large works of Benjamin Britten and Ralph Vaughan Williams and the evolution of choral leadership. Her dissertation was titled, The Evolution of Choral Leadership- a study of Situational Leadership and Leader Autonomy Support in the Context of a Modern Choral Setting.