ARTISTIC DIRECTOR AND CONDUCTOR...

Now in his fourth season as Two Rivers Chorale artistic director and conductor, Timothy Sawyer has enjoyed an active career as a conductor, educator and professional singer following formal musical training at Bethel University (St. Paul), Exeter University (England), the University of Minnesota, and in doctoral-level study at the University of Iowa. He has done advanced conducting studies with Helmuth Rilling, the late Margaret Hillis, Vance George, William Hatcher, Robert Berglund, Charles Olson, Gregg Smith, and Sweden’s Eric Ericson. In addition to extensive experience as a tenor soloist, he is a veteran of several professional choirs, among them the Dale Warland Singers, the Ensemble Singers of VocalEssence of Minnesota under Philip Brunelle, and the Oregon Bach Festival Chorus, with which he shared in a Grammy Award for the 1998 recording of Kyzysztof Penderecki’s Credo. Since 1989, Sawyer has been a member of the music faculty at Northwestern College in St. Paul where he is director of choral activities, conducts the Northwestern College Choir, Men’s Chorus and teaches conducting. Choirs under his direction have been heard in numerous performances, tours and radio broadcasts throughout the United States, Scandinavia, throughout Europe and in South America at the America Cantat in Caracas, Venezuela. From 1997-2004, Sawyer served a seven-year tenure as assistant artistic director of the Minnesota Chorale, principal symphonic chorus of the Minnesota Orchestra. Active also in church music, he has served since 1995 as choir director at the Colonial Church of Edina and also was a member of the steering board of directors for the 2002 Sixth World Choral Symposium held in Minneapolis/St. Paul. An enthusiastic teacher of conducting, Sawyer is past member of the artistic staff of the conducting master class at the Toronto Bach Festival, and has recently been appointed Associate Director of the conducting master class at the Oregon Bach Festival. He has also been a member of the resident faculty for The Art of Choral Conducting, a summer conducting symposium at the University of Minnesota School of Music. He is a member of the board of Music in World Cultures, an international faith-based organization at the forefront of a growing movement dedicated to the establishment and advancement of the use of music as a strategic tool in developing cross-cultural relationships. In that role, he also serves as an adjunct faculty member at the International Music Academy in Ukraine and Estonia. Sawyer lives in suburban Minneapolis with two singing redheads named Erika and Emily, and his wife, violinist Heidi Kahl Sawyer.

TRC Board of Directors

Maria Foley - President
Murray Bright - Vice President
Judy Miller - Secretary
Kathy Johnson - Treasurer

Nancy Bjornlie
Diane Nielsen
Bob Wieland
Beth Yokom