• Chamber Singers
• Concert Choir
• Musical Theatre
• Conducting
• Music of Broadway
• Organ Performance

Associate Professor of Music Solveig Holmquist, in her tenth year at Western Oregon University, is Director of Choral Activities and Co-Head of the Music Department. Her teaching duties include conducting the Concert Choir and Chamber Singers, providing musical direction for the yearly musicals in collaboration with the department of Theater/Dance, and teaching Conducting, Choral Methods, and Choral Literature. As a certified adjudicator, Holmquist is in demand at numerous clinics, festivals, and contests throughout the Northwest; guest conducting appearances include the Spokane Festival of the Arts, the Colorado Western Region Honor Choir, and the Anchorage High Schools Choral Festival. As an Associate Conductor in Residence for MidAmerica Productions in New York, she will make her fourth appearance conducting on the Carnegie Hall stage in February 2007, with WOU Chamber Singers as the core ensemble.

Dr. Holmquist is the founder and Artistic Director of the Festival Chorale Oregon, a civic choir in its 26th season which has developed a reputation for musical excellence in Oregon and in the international community. Festival Chorale Oregon has enjoyed performing tours through Germany, France, Scandinavia, Austria, Switzerland, the Czech Republic and Spain. At home, FCO regularly performs major choral/orchestral works for Willamette Valley audiences.

Dr. Holmquist received her musical training at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, where she sang with the renowned St. Olaf Choir; at Western Oregon State College; and at the University of Oregon. Her professional affiliations include the American Choral Directors Association, serving as President of the Oregon chapter from 2003-2005 and also as a Repertoire and Standards Chair on the Northwest Board. She was President of Oregon Music Educators National Conference from1992-1994, and has filled appointments on many committees for both the state and national organizations.

Since 1985, Holmquist has been an auditioned member of the Oregon Bach Festival Chorus, Helmuth Rilling, conductor, and In 1991 was selected to the festival's conducting master class. The Oregon Bach Festival Choir won the 2000 Grammy for Best Choral Performance for its premiere and recording of "Credo" by Polish composer Krzystof Pendereckip; the OBF Choir was subsequently invited to perform the work at the World Symposium of Choral Music in the summer of 2002. In the summer of 2006, the OBF choir and orchestra began a 3-year project, recording the late Haydn masses for Hanssler-Verlag.

Holmquist was involved in church music for thirty-seven years, most recently serving for fifteen years as Music Director at First Methodist Church in Salem, where she was organist and led a sequential music program that included nine choirs, a summer music camp, youth musicals, a concert series, and a weekly music column. An accomplished organist, she has been called upon to play dedicatory recitals on several organ installations in the area.

Dr. Holmquist and her husband Jon live in Salem. They have six grown children and ten grandchildren.

You may contact Dr. Holmquist at:

Western Oregon University
Department of Music, Smith Hall 102
Monmouth, OR 97361
phone: (503) 838-8437
e-mail: holmqus@wou.edu