High School Choral Festival

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Bring your singers to Concordia to rehearse and perform with the conductors of Concordia’s choirs.

Concordia College Choral Festival featuring guest clinician Kyle Pederson!

Saturday, Oct. 3, 2026
Registration Deadline: Sept. 19, 2026

Join us on campus with your singers in grades 10-12 (ninth graders are welcome if you have a 9-12 choir) for our annual choral festival. We are especially excited to host guest clinician Kyle Pederson!

There is no cost for students to attend this festival unless they choose to eat lunch on campus. The cost for lunch is $15 per student. We are excited to have you bring as many students as you would like, regardless of the section breakdown!

Saturday, Oct. 3, will be a full day of rehearsals and performances beginning with registration at 9 a.m. and ending by 5:45 p.m. There will be three massed choir selections that will be carefully selected so that they may be great candidates for fall programming at your high school. The day will feature great musical performances, exciting rehearsals, and a grand finale concert.

Travel or music grants are available. If interested, or for more information, contact Dr. Culloton (culloton@cord.edu).

Register Now

Repertoire

No need to be concert ready, but the selections should be well prepared prior to the festival. In other words, you should not plan to distribute music the morning of the festival. This will make for the best experience for your students!

Repertoire will be announced soon!

Note: We invite you to use the music retailer of your choice to purchase the scores for our festival. For your convenience, we include links to the exact scores/editions from popular music retail websites. Please understand that illegal photocopies are not allowed to be used at this festival. Order your scores early to ensure delivery and preparation time is maximized.

Frequently Asked Questions

The registration is $15 per student if they are eating lunch on campus, otherwise there is no registration fee. But, as you work on budgets and students ask how much money they should bring, there are a few "travel expenses" you should consider. As choir director, you will be responsible for your personal Friday night housing expense (if needed), as well as breakfast on Saturday. As far as student expenses, if you are traveling ahead of time, factor in Friday evening dinner expense on the road. The other meal on the road may be Saturday evening after dismissal. And lastly, your transportation expenses. 

No need to be concert ready, but the selections should be well-prepared prior to the festival. In other words, you should not plan to distribute music the morning of the festival. This will make for the best experience for your students!

Note: We invite you to use the music retailer of your choice to purchase the scores for our festival. For your convenience, we include links to the exact scores/editions from popular music retail websites. Please understand that photocopies are not allowed to be used at this festival. Order your scores early to ensure delivery and preparation time is maximized.

Registration will be Saturday morning from 9-9:30 a.m.

Driving Directions

Bring your music and a pencil, as both will be used throughout the day. Please have your singers label their music with their name and school in case it is lost or left behind.

Please have your students dress as though they were going to their grandmother's birthday party. In other words, look sharp.

The concert will be at 4:30 p.m. on the campus of Concordia College. There will likely be seating available for guests (pending total festival numbers). We are pleased that our campus can be "home" to the choral festival.

Kyle Pederson, guest clinician

Kyle Pederson is a Minneapolis-based composer, lyricist, pianist, and educator. He enjoys working at the intersection of the sacred and secular, and his lyrics and music invite the choir and audience to be agents of hope, grace, and compassion in the world. Pederson has been awarded both the American Prize in Choral Composition and the ACDA Genesis Prize. His music resonates for its “evocative use of harmony, melody, rhythm and texture” — and is “incredibly inspirational, moving, and spiritual” (American Prize).

Pederson has an undergraduate degree from Augustana University, a master’s degree in education from the University of St. Thomas, and an MFA in music composition from Vermont College of Fine Arts. His work is commissioned, performed, and recorded by community, school, and professional choirs around the world and is published by ECS, Walton, Santa Barbara, Hal Leonard, Beckenhorst, Carl Fischer, Alfred, Gentry, and Hinshaw. Additional information and links to Pederson’s music can be found at KylePederson.com.

Dr. Stephanie Tubiolo

Dr. Stephanie Tubiolo joined the Concordia faculty in Fall 2025, where she is the associate director of choirs, assistant professor of choral music, leads Kantorei and Chapel Choir, and teaches conducting.
 
Previously, she was at Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University, where she won the Irene Alm Memorial Prize for Excellence in Performance and Scholarly Research for her doctoral work. At Rutgers, she served as conductor of the University Choir and Voorhees Choir and as chorus master of Opera Theater Rutgers. In addition to her work on the podium, Tubiolo taught conducting to music education and performance majors, coached vocal chamber music, and worked collaboratively with music teachers in New Brunswick Public Schools. 
 
Tubiolo is especially passionate about nurturing community partnerships and taught with the Yale School of Music’s Music in Schools Initiative from 2011 to 2023. There, she was the founding director of Morse Chorale, a non-selective choir for New Haven Public School students in grades 2-12. Under her direction, Morse Chorale represented Yale and New Haven on many stages, including regional and state ACDA conferences. In recognition of her work with the Music in Schools Initiative, she received the Yale Distinguished Teaching Artist Award in 2023. 
 
Alongside her teaching, Tubiolo manages NextWorks, an initiative of the Yale Glee Club, which commissions accessible new choral music for the public domain, enabling choirs of all sorts to perform new music for free. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in music from Yale College, a Master of Music degree in choral conducting from the Yale School of Music and Institute of Sacred Music, and a doctorate in choral conducting from Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University.

Dr. Michael Culloton

Dr. Michael Culloton is an associate professor of music at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota, where he is the director of choral activities, conductor of The Concordia Choir, and the Paul J. and Eleanor Christiansen Chair of Choral Music. Dr. Culloton teaches vocal music education and church music courses, serves as campus supervisor for student teachers, and advises the student chapter of the American Choral Directors Association. He also conducts the Minnesota All-State Lutheran Choir, a summer program of Concordia College. Along with his duties at Concordia, Dr. Culloton is the artistic director and conductor of the Fargo-Moorhead Choral Artists and conductor of the Trinity Lutheran Church Cathedral Choir.

Prior to this appointment, Dr. Culloton served as the associate director of choirs at Concordia College for eight years, conducting the Chapel Choir, Cantabile, and Kantorei. Before moving to Moorhead, he was the artistic director and conductor of Choral Arts Ensemble and Honors Choirs of Southeast Minnesota, both organizations based in Rochester (Minn.), for eight years. He earned his Bachelor of Music degree from Concordia College in Moorhead, where he studied with Dr. René Clausen, and his Master of Music degree from the University of Arizona, where he studied with Maurice Skones. Dr. Culloton completed his Doctor of Musical Arts degree through North Dakota State University, where he studied with Jo Ann Miller and Michael Weber.

Dr. Culloton has taught at Luther College and Winona Senior High School and has also served as the assistant and interim conductor of the National Lutheran Choir. He has held church choir positions in Moorhead, Tucson, Arizona, and Decorah, Iowa, and has been music director for nearly a dozen musical theater productions. Along with his twin brother, Dr. Culloton is the co-editor of the Matthew and Michael Culloton Choral Series with Santa Barbara Music Publishing Inc. He has been recognized as the Minnesota ACDA Young Conductor of the Year and also received the ACDA/VocalEssence Creative Programming Award for his work with Choral Arts Ensemble. In 2009, he was a featured conductor in “Never Stop Singing,” a documentary about the history of choral music in Minnesota. Dr. Culloton serves as a guest conductor, clinician, and lecturer throughout the country. He lives in Moorhead with his wife, Brynn, who works in the Admission Office at Concordia, and their daughters, Eleanor and Miriam.