About Lisa Billingham

Dr. Lisa A. Billingham is a Professor of Choral Music Education and Director of Graduate Studies at George Mason University, where she conducts the 80-100 voice University Chorale. She teaches a wide range of courses in choral music education at the undergraduate and graduate level as well as advising doctoral students with their dissertation research. She is active as aFaculty Senator at Mason and chairs the Organizations and Operations Committee as a member of the Executive Board for the Senate.

As the first choral conductor in the United States to become a Certified Laban/Bartenieff Movement Analyst through the Integrated Movement Studies Program (make this a hyperlink to: http://www.imsmovement.com/) under Janice Meaden and Peggy Hackney, she has published A Complete Conductor’sGuide to Laban Movement Theory available from GIA. (Add a hyperlink to the book - https://www.giamusic.com/store/resource/the-complete-conductors-guide-to-laban-movement-theory-book-g7184). Her research incorporates all aspects of Laban’s Theories with a focus on the Bartenieff Fundamentals as a core concept.

Dr. Billingham is a leader for The American Choral Directors Conference as the Chair of the National Standing Committee for Education and Communication. This committee is currently editing the process and content for ACDA initiatives related to education and the choral conductor and ChoralNet. (Hyperlink here: https://www.choralnet.org/). The Annual Voices United Conference is hosted on the campus of George Mason University annually for which Dr. Billingham has been a site host and planning committee member since 2004. As a past president for the Virginia Chapter of ACDA she continues to serve as an advisor to the state leadership.

As a clinician for choirs and conferences throughout the US, Europe and South America, Dr. Billingham focuses on the basics of Laban pedagogy as a way to foster communication skills in the classroom and create a healthy, balanced and efficient conducting gesture set for the choral rehearsal.

She has presented clinics and poster sessions for The American Choral Directors Association, The International Society for Music Education (in Bologna, Italy and Porto Alegre Brazil),The Society for Music Education and the Virginia Music Educators Conference.

Dr. Billingham holds a DMA in Choral Conducting from the University of Arizona, an MM in Choral Conducting from the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory of Music and a BME in Choral Music Education from Indiana University (Bloomington). Her conducting mentors include Bruce Chamberlain, Eph Ehly, James Jordan, Maurice Skones and Volker Hempfling.