2016 National Choral Honors Project

Betsy Cook Weber

Dr. Betsy Cook Weber is Professor of Music and Director of Choral Studies at the University of Houston’s Moores School of Music and is also active internationally as a conductor, clinician, adjudicator, and lecturer. In the summer of 2013, Weber became the 13th person and 1st woman to receive the Texas Choral Director Association’s coveted Texas Choirmaster Award. She is editor of the Betsy Cook Weber choral series with Alliance Music Publishing.

Weber was appointed Director of the Houston Symphony Chorus in Fall of 2014, a group that she served as Assistant/Associate Director in 1990 – 1997. In that role, she has prepared or helped prepare choral-orchestral masterworks for some of the world’s greatest conductors, including Robert Shaw, Andrés Orozco-Estrada, Christoph Eschenbach, Nicholas McKegan, and Christopher Seaman.

Choirs under Weber’s direction, including the Moores School Concert Chorale, have been featured at multiple state and national conventions including the American Choral Directors Association national convention in Miami in 2007. Internationally, Chorale has won prizes and received acclaim at prestigious competitions in Wales, France and Germany, including a first-place finish as one of only ten choirs world-wide selected to compete in the famous International Chamber Choir Competition in Marktoberdorf, Germany. Chorale won first place in their primary division in the Grand Prix of Nations in Magdeburg, Germany in 2015. In the Musica Mundi ranking of the Top 1,000 choirs worldwide, Concert Chorale is ranking third among all choirs and first in the under-24 category.

Weber has prepared singers for Da Camera, for early music orchestras Ars Lyrica and Mercury Houston, and is also routinely called upon to prepare singers for touring shows, including Josh Groban, NBC’s Clash of the Choirs, Telemundo’s Latin Grammy’s, Star Wars in Concert, Andreas Bocelli., and Legends of Zelda.

Before coming to the University of Houston, Weber taught vocal music, K-12, in the public schools. She holds degrees from the University of North Texas, Westminster Choir College (Princeton, NJ), and the University of Houston.