Carolee Curtright

Carolee R. Curtright is professor emeritus of Music Education and Choral Activities at the University of Nebraska‑Lincoln School of Music where she taught such courses as Music Education for the Elementary Education Major, Choral Methods, Voice Skills, Choral Literature and Analysis, Musical Stage Production Techniques, Principles and Process in Music Learning, and Choral Arranging. She has also conducted the Freshman Chorale and directed the School of Music Women's Ensemble and The University Chorale. The Chorale made regular appearances in church and choral programs in the performance of larger works and in tours throughout the Midwest. They consistently performed for the Nebraska Music Educators Association conferences and also performed for the Nebraska State and North Central Division American Choral Directors conventions. They also performed for Division and National Conventions of MENC. She often directs choral clinics and festivals both in Nebraska and throughout the United States for elementary, middle school, high school, and college and has been a constant advocate for the musical integrity of the Treble Ensemble.

Carolee was often recognized by parents for caring about students with the Parents Award to UNL teachers and received a Distinguished Teaching Award from the College of Fine and Performing Arts in the spring of 2000. Prior to her association with the University of Nebraska she served as the director of youth and children's choirs at Country Club Christian Church in Kansas City, Missouri. There, she directed nine choirs, whose members ranged in age from three through High School, and two handbell choirs.

She is a published composer/arranger with compositions published by Hinshaw, Boosey and Hawkes, Plymouth, Cherry Lane, Heritage, Lorenz, Roger Dean, and Choristers Guild. She wrote a commissioned piece for the fiftieth anniversary of the North Carolina Summer Institute for the Choral Art and has directed the middle school and children's choirs during that institute. She is an excellent resource for children's, middle school, and women's choral literature. She is the founder/artistic director of the Pueri Cantores Organization of Choirs for Young Voices that includes three choirs for young singers from third grade through high school. This organization is a community organization open to any Nebraska child by audition. It began as a boys choir to sing the Britten War Requiem under the direction of Robert Shaw. The organization has evolved to three choirs, a training choir, an intermediate choir, and a high school mixed choir. In 2001, she founded a community women's choir, Cantabile, that is in its eighth year. The choirs perform for many organizations in Lincoln, in Nebraska, and in the surrounding states. They have toured nationally and internationally.

Until July of 2002, Carolee was the North Central Division Repertoire and Standards Chair for Children's Choirs and a member of the National Committee of Repertoire and Standards Chairs. While in that position, she coordinated the National Children's Honor Choir in Washington, DC in 1995 and coordinated four honor choirs during the North Central Division Convention held in Lincoln, NE in 1996. She has maintained a constant involvement with the young singer and Choral Music by coordinating festivals, directing honor choirs and working with directors of choirs. She presently sings with the Matin Singers at First Plymouth Congregational Church and accompanies the High School and Hope Choirs. She has been involved with Sing Around Nebraska since its beginning and conducted the first Sing Around Nebraska Honor Choir. She has conducted SAN choirs every year that they have been organized in many sites across the state of Nebraska and just completed conducting the 2006 Sing Around Nebraska choir in Scottsbluff with 177 young singers.

Recently, Carolee was recognized by her alma mater, Culver‑Stockton College, with an honorary Doctorate of Music. She also received the Cornell Runestad Lifetime Service Award from the Nebraska Choral Directors Association becoming the first woman to receive the award.