Introducing RCC’s New Artistic Director
After a thorough search and interview process, the board of directors is pleased to announce Kym Scott as the newest Artistic Director of Renaissance City Choir! Kym’s biography is included below; you will see she has extensive experience with—and passion for—community based choirs and promoting inclusion and justice through music.
She sends along the following message to our friends:
Dear supporters of RCC.
I’m very excited to have been named as the new Artistic Director of the Renaissance City Choir. As the Director of Choral Activities at West Virginia University I spend much of my life working with college students, but I have worked with community choirs for over twenty-five years and love both the artistic and community aspects of this type of music making. I am looking forward to presenting programs that promote inclusivity, equality, and justice. I am committed to positively promoting the LGBTQIA+ community and to building relationships between RCC and the greater Pittsburgh music, arts, and general community at large.
I encourage you to support us as we navigate our way back to making music again. We are striving to create safe spaces for both our singers and our audiences, and I look forward to seeing you at a performance in the not-too-distant future.
Kym
We are very eager to get the season started with Dr. Scott and we will have additional information soon about upcoming rehearsals if you would like to join us. Thank you for your ongoing support of Renaissance City Choir; we look forward to singing for you again!
Dr. Kym Scott is the Director of Choral Activities at West Virginia University where she conducts the WVU Chamber Singers, Mountaineer Chorus, and Community Choir. She also teaches conducting, choral techniques, and choral literature, and oversees the choral conducting graduate program. She has directed choirs in Australia, Asia, Europe, the UK, and the United States, including several performances by the USC Chamber Singers with The Rolling Stones in Los Angeles and Anaheim during their “50 and counting” world tour.
Dr. Scott regularly presents at state, regional, and national conferences, and has conducted All-State and Festival Choirs. She currently sits on the board of the West Virginia chapter of the American Choral Director’s Association in addition to serving as the collegiate honor choir chair. She is a founding member of MASICA, the Mid-Atlantic Southern Intercollegiate Choral Association and is a regular chorister and conductor with Maestri Vocale Treble, a collaborative treble voice choral ensemble.
An Australian native, Dr. Scott received her undergraduate degree in piano performance from the Queensland Conservatorium of Music and her Masters degree in aural pedagogy from the University of Queensland. In 2011 she relocated to the United States to complete her doctoral studies at the University of Southern California.
Having worked with all age groups, Scott is particularly passionate about choral music in the community. She has conducted community choirs for over twenty years, and has worked with choirs for the homeless, disadvantaged, and incarcerated.
When faced with the challenges presented by the Covid-19 pandemic, Scott combined her professional past as a couture fashion designer and seamstress with the newfound needs of her choral singers and designed the sing-safe performer’s mask. The mask is now being used by students and performers throughout the United States and Canada as well as in the UK and Europe.
