Dr. Bingham L. Vick, Jr.
Artistic Director and Conductor

During his career, Dr.Vick has conducted many of the great choral masterworks, including J.S.Bach Mass in B-Minor, Handel Messiah, the Berlioz Requiem, Johannes Brahms Ein deutsches Requiem, Haydn The Creation, Benjamin Britten's War Requiem, the Beethoven Missa Solemnis in D and the Mass in C, Stravinsky Symphony of Psalms, the great Requiem settings of Verdi, Mozart, Duruflé, Fauré, Rutter, and Howells, and significant choral-orchestral music of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. He has commissioned new choral music by Mark Kilstofte, Daniel Gawthrop, Robert Powell, and Dan Forrest.

As founder and conductor of the Chorale Chamber Ensemble (20 professional voices), Vick has performed a wide range of the choral chamber repertoire, from PDQ Bach to Brahms "Liebeslieder Waltzer," including both sacred and secular literature by Bach, Schubert, Mozart, Haydn, Brahms, Hindemith, Kilstofte, Britten, Rutter, Debussy, Tavener, Copland, Vaughan Williams, and vocal jazz arrangements.

A native of Charlotte, NC, he earned degrees from Stetson University and Northwestern University, where he was a student of Margaret Hillis and Assistant Conductor of the Chicago Symphony Chorus. He sang for several years in the Robert Shaw Festival Chorus, conducted by Robert Shaw. Dr.Vick retired in 2003, as Musical Director at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Greenville after twenty-eight years of service.

He is a Life Member of the American Choral Directors Association (a past president of the thirteen-state Southern Division ACDA), and an active member of the Music Educator's National Conference, and the International Federation for Choral Music. Vick is a member of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, Pi Kappa Lambda, Omicron Delta Kappa, and The Quaternion Society of Furman University. Over the past forty years, Dr.Vick developed an outstanding reputation as a conductor and teacher. During his career, he has conducted many of the great choral-orchestral masterworks, including J.S.Bach Mass in B-Minor, Handel Messiah, the Berlioz Requiem, Johannes Brahms Ein deutsches Requiem, Haydn The Creation, Benjamin Britten's War Requiem, the Beethoven Missa Solemnis, Stravinsky Symphony of Psalms, the great Requiem settings of Verdi, Mozart, Duruflé, Fauré, Rutter, and Howells, and significant "works" of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. He commissioned new choral music by Mark Kilstofte, Daniel Gawthrop, Robert Powell, and Dan Forrest.

Under Vick's direction, the Furman Singers performed at several Southern Division and National Conventions of the American Choral Directors Association, and for conventions of the Music Educators National Conference. Through annual tours in the East and Southeastern United States and nineteen concert tours to Europe, the Furman Singers performed in many of the great cathedrals of Europe, Russia, and the British Isles, and in the great churches of the United States.

As an educator, Professor Vick has trained numerous outstanding school and church musical leaders, as well as many collegiate conductors and teachers. He published a conducting textbook, Conducting – What Matters Most (2003). He has conducted all-county and all-state choirs in many southeastern states, and is in demand as a guest conductor and clinician.

In 1984, Dr.Vick received the Furman University Meritorious Teacher Award. In 2000, he was presented the Order of the Palmetto by the Governor of South Carolina for his outstanding contributions and service to the arts in the state. Dr.Vick was honored by the South Carolina Arts Commission in 2004, with the Elizabeth O'Neill Verner Governor's Award for his distinctive leadership and excellence in the arts. Dr.Vick was presented the Distinguished Alumnus Award from his alma mater, Stetson University, in the spring of 2005.

In March, 2010, Dr. Vick was inducted into the exclusive Quaternion Club of Furman University as a faculty member who embodies the ideals of "leadership, scholarship, character and love for Furman."