Directors

Joshua Habermann, Music Director

Joshua Habermann assumed the position of music director of the Santa Fe Desert Chorale during Summer Festival 2009. He is Director of Choral Studies at the University of Miami Frost School of Music and the music directorship of the Master Chorale of South Florida, a 125-voice chorus dedicated to performing major choral-orchestral works.

From 1996-2008 Habermann was professor of music at San Francisco State University, where he directed the choral program, and taught choral literature, conducting, lyric diction, and voice. Under his direction the SFSU Chamber Singers were invited to appear in several international and national conferences and festivals including an appearance at the American Choral Director’s Association in 2008.

Habermann’s long association with the San Francisco Symphony Chorus began in 1991, when he joined the chorus as a singer and diction coach. From 1996-2006 he was assistant to chorus director Vance George, and in 2006-2007 served as interim director upon George’s retirement. In that capacity he prepared the chorus for performances with conductors Michael Tilson Thomas and Charles Dutoit in concerts of Mozart, and Berlioz’s La Damnation de Faust.

As a singer (tenor) Habermann has performed with the Oregon Bach Festival Chorus and with Conspirare (Austin, TX). He also maintains an interest in the Hawaiian choral tradition, and sings periodically with Kawaiolaonapukanileo, an ensemble dedicated to performing and preserving this unique repertoire. Other research interests include Latin American and Nordic music. His dissertation on the a cappella works of Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara was a Julius Herford Prize finalist for music research in 1997.

A native of California, Habermann is a graduate of Georgetown University and the University of Texas at Austin, where he completed doctoral studies in conducting with Craig Hella Johnson. He has also studied under Helmuth Rilling (conducting), Scott Fogelsong (piano) and David Jones (voice).

Don Scott Carpenter, General Director

Don Scott Carpenter is General Director of the Santa Fe Desert Chorale, a post he has held since 2007. Mr. Carpenter’s career has included tenures as Organist/Director of Music and Worship at Second Presbyterian Church (Louisville), Director of Sacred Music Studies at Bellarmine University (Louisville), Instructor of Music History at the University of Louisville and Organist/Director of Music at the Temple Adath Israel B’rith, the oldest and largest Jewish congregation in Kentucky.

In December 2008 Carpenter conducted the Santa Fe Desert Chorale in its first ever performance of music of the Jewish tradition at Temple Beth Sholom in Santa Fe, New Mexico. That same season he conducted the Desert Chorale Children’s Choir, of which he is Music Director, both alone and with the Santa Fe Desert Chorale. Carpenter’s prior conducting experience has included such major works as Palestrina’s Missa Papae Marcelli, Vivaldi Gloria, Fauré Requiem, Schubert Mass in C, Bach Cantata 172: Erschallet, ihr Lieder, Pergolesi Magnificat, Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols, Vaughan-Williams Five Mystical Songs and Handel’s Messiah. He has also conducted massed handbell choirs in festival and youth and children’s choirs in concert. His choirs have been heard throughout Europe and North America and most recently performed as part of the Mozart International Youth Choral Festival in Salzburg and Vienna, Austria and as a part of the inaugural Gheens Great Expectations series in a performance of Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy with the Louisville Youth Orchestra.

Carpenter holds the Master of Music degree in Choral Conducting (performance) from the University of Louisville School of Music where he was a student of Kent E. Hatteberg as well as the Bachelor of Music in Organ Performance and Church Music from the same university where he was a student of Melvin D. Dickinson. He has coached with Jeremy Summerly at the Royal Academy of Music in London and participated in master classes with Anton Armstrong, Dennis Keene, Sir George Guest, Christopher Young, Todd Wilson, David Higgs and Russell Saunders as well as studied with David Harman, Henry Buckwalter, Doris Keyes, Stephen Brown and Art DeWeese.