Lynne Gackle is the Director of Choral Activities at Baylor University and holds the Mary Jane Gibbs Professor of Music Chair. She conducts Baylor Bella Voce, Baylor Concert Choir, teaches choral conducting, choral literature and serves as the Director of the Ensemble Division. Prior to her Baylor appointment, Lynne taught at the University of South Florida, University of Mississippi and the University of Miami (FL). She received her education from LSU (BME) and the University of Miami (MM/PhD). Lynne is an active choral clinician and conductor, nationally and internationally. She has conducted All-State, Festival Choirs and Clinics in more than 30 states, several Divisional ACDA honor choirs and two ACDA national honor choirs. Her choirs have also performed at American Choral Directors Association state, regional, and national conferences as well as at the Music Educators National Conference Biennial Convention (currently known as NAFME). Internationally, she conducted the Australian National Choral Association’s High School Women’s Choir in Brisbane, the Alberta Choral Federation’s High School Honor Choir in Calgary, the DoDDS-Europe Honors Music Festival Mixed Choir, (Wiesbaden, Germany), the Haydn Youth Festival in Vienna, the Association for Music in International Schools (AMIS) International Women’s Honor Choir in Beijing, China as well as Luxembourg, and the International Honors Performance High School Honor Choir at the Sydney Opera House in Sydney, Australia. For the past 20 years, she has served as guest conductor for various National Honor Choirs at Carnegie Hall in New York City.
She has held various positions within the American Choral Directors Association, including President, Southern Division and ACDA-Florida, National R & S Chair for Children’s Choir, Southern Division Chair for Women’s Choir and recently served as the TCDA-VP of Collegiate/Community Choirs. The Florida ACDA chapter awarded her the Wayne Hugoboom Distinguished Service Award for dedicated service, leadership, and excellence. Dr. Gackle was recently awarded the highly coveted Texas Choir Master Award (2021) by the Texas Choral Directors Association. She currently serves as the Past-National President for ACDA.
Gackle has written several highly cited articles for the Choral Journal. She is also the editor of Choral Artistry for the Singer (Walton Music/GIA) and the Lynne Gackle Choral Series (Colla Voce Music). Internationally recognized for her research on the female adolescent voice, Lynne is the author of Finding Ophelia’s Voice, Opening Ophelia’s Heart: Nurturing the Adolescent Female Voice (Heritage Music)). She has also served as a contributing-author for other books published by GIA including Conducting Women’s Choirs: Strategies for Success and Teaching Music Through Performance in Choir, Vol. 4 and Vol. 5. Additionally, she has published articles for Oxford Press, and was a Lead Author for Voices In Concert (Hal Leonard/McGraw Hill). Most recently, she was a contributing author to the Oxford Handbook for Singing (Oxford, 2019). Gackle was awarded Baylor’s Outstanding Faculty Award in Research (2012). She holds memberships in ACDA, TMEA, TCDA, and NATS.
After earning her Bachelor’s degree in piano performance, Maggie Stith has held positions as a staff pianist at Belhaven University, Colorado College, and Auburn University, where she had the opportunity to work with such esteemed faculty as Dr. Rosephanye Powell who has been hailed as one of America’s top woman composers.
Maggie also spent 6 months directing the music program at African Bible University in Uganda and has performed with vocalists and choirs at the Miyoshi International Children’s Music Festival in Japan, Music For All National Festival, Colorado Music Educator’s Association conferences, and NATS competitions in Alabama, Mississippi, and Colorado, among others. Maggie will graduate with her Master of Music degree in Collaborative Piano this spring from Baylor University and is excitedly looking forward to a growing career as a pianist/coach.
Meeting and Rehearsal/Performance Schedule 2022
Step-By-Step Calendar for Directors
Repertoire List
Clinician's Notes (none at this time)
View repertoire from previous years here.