Welcome to CHORALNUT! I am the Director of Choral Activities at the The University of New Orleans and the Director of Music at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in New Orleans. I'm also the Louisiana state R&S chair for Ethnic & Multicultural choirs. I LOVE ACDA!

In addition to my bio., photos, and a few concert programs, I have collected a wealth of resources for Music Educators and Church Musicians. Categories include Choral, Orchestral, Band, Opera, Jazz, Music Therapy, Music Education, Music & Health, Music Advocacy, Composers, Church Music Resources, Music Theory and MORE! There is also a page dedicated to New Orleans music and local information which includes links to local choirs, orchestras, bands, theatres, Jazz and Classical musicians, dance groups, Cajun info, crafts, New Orleans festivals, New Orleans museums, actitivies, and civic cultural organizations. There is also a unique page on Hoodoo & Voodoo, with some Gullah information thrown in, as I could only find a few resource pages anywhere out there. This site is also the home for the New Orleans Summer Chorus (NOSC), and has a page for the professional women's choral group, Inconspicuous 8. Check out the MYSTERY page for some funny music! See at the bottom of this page for links that will make you laugh!!!

Look around a bit and feel free to contact me for any reason, especially if you love choral music! The name of this site comes from what the choral master Dale Warland called me once (with a smile) when he signed a CD for me - “To Caroline Carson, a fellow "choral nut" and also b/c everyone that knows me realizes I’m a quite crazy about choral music! My main mentor is Dr. Larry Wyatt, Director of Choral Activities at The University of South Carolina.

This picture is from December, 2008. The UNO choirs and the New Orleans Civic Symphony with guest alumni and soloists performed together at Christ Church Episcopal Cathedral on St. Charles Avenue, New Orleans.

1. The NOVA (New Orleans Vocal Arts) Chorale announces its 20th Anniversary concert season. Check out www.novachorale.org for more information on the group and for future concert schedule updates!

2. Here is to a Microsoft Word Doc that has a lot of area choral group concert schedules for the 2009-2010 year. It is VERY incomplete, but will be updated as the information comes in. CALENDAR OF CHORAL CONCERTS - updated 8/25/09

I am currently the Director of Choral Activities at the University of New Orleans and the Director of Music at St. Paul's Episcopal Church. I moved to New Orleans from Georgia where I was the founder and director of the Milledgeville Singers Guild, Director of Choirs at Central High School (Magnet for the Arts) in Macon, Georgia, and Director of Music Ministries at First Presbyterian Church in Milledgeville. I have served on the faculty of Georgia College & State University (as Dir. of Choral Activities) and at Shenandoah Conservatory (as Adjunct Professor of Choral Literature and Conducting). I received my Bachelors degree in Music Education from the University of South Carolina, a Masters in Conducting from Emory University, and the Doctorate of Musical Arts in Conducting from USC in Columbia, SC. I have had the good fortune to work with such distinguished American conductors as Larry Wyatt, Manuel Alvarez, Alfred Calabrese, Dale Warland, and Robert Page (those last two gentlemen in workshops). I have also worked overseas in workshops with Boris Tevlin of the Moscow Conservatory, Helène Guy of the Paris Conservatory, Professor Marin Tchonev and Maestro Milko Kolarov, both from Varna, Bulgaria.

While in Atlanta at Emory University, I taught in the Atlanta public school system, chaired my district Honor Chorus, and participated in four Grammy-winning recordings with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chorus under the direction of Robert Shaw and Yoel Levi. Singing with Robert Shaw was like grad school in itself! While at USC, I was the director of the Early Music Ensemble and an assistant for the Concert Choir and Columbia Choral Society. I have prepared choruses for concerts, workshops, tours, and a year 2000 Carnegie Hall performance. In addition to participating in numerous choral workshops in the US, I have attended the Varna International Conductors Symposium six times. After three of the workshops, I taught short classes on American Music and Music Education in association with the University of Varna, Bulgaria. I took a group of students to Bulgaria in May 2008. If you have never visited Bulgaria, let me tell you that it is an incredibly wonderful experience!

Conducting Brahms in Bulgaria

Mardi gras 2009

New Year's 2009 Yes, I know the hat is kind of furry, but I like it anyway! : )

I can't take credit for this one. My brother Chris did this to me. OUCH, but I do love my green hair! : )

The laziest cat in the entire universe: Sasha

It is cruel, you know, that music should be so beautiful. It has the beauty of loneliness and of pain: of strength and freedom. The beauty of disappointment and never-satisfied love. The cruel beauty of nature, and everlasting beauty of monotony -
Benjamin Britten (1913-1976)

Complaint Choirs of the World. If you don't know what this is, I think it's worth visiting!

http://www.complaintschoir.org/

Love the Muppets? Did you know they have some classical music videos out?

http://www.radiolovers.com/

Old radio shows you can listen to while you're working on the computer!
They have comedies, mysteries, famous people etc.

Here, I am conducting Beethoven's Mass in C and later in the same evening, portions of Bizet's Te Deum. If you are not familiar with the Bizet work, find it......it's ear candy.

Me next to statue of Vlad Tepes in Sighisoara. Romania.