Gary Weidenaar is in the middle of his 36th year of teaching. Since 2006, he has served as Director of Choral Studies at Central Washington University, where over 200 singers make up the four choirs which comprise CWU’s traditional choral offerings. Weidenaar’s background is broad and varied. For the first fifteen years of his career he taught at public or private schools in Michigan, Germany, Norway, and California – with nine of those years overseas. His assignments included teaching everything from 3rd-13th grade students. He holds degrees from Western Michigan and Michigan State Universities and earned his doctorate at the University of Kansas in 2002. While studying at KU, Gary sang on this stage under his then-professor Simon Carrington (of King Singers fame) in a DCINY concert! Dr. Weidenaar spends a great deal of time with directors and/or choirs of all levels. He has presented workshops to music educators throughout the US; as well as in Switzerland, Sweden, the Netherlands, Norway, and Germany. He has adjudicated, served as clinician, or conducted over 1,700 choirs since 2002. His Chamber Choir has collaborated with Ola Gjeilo on four separate recording sessions, which have yielded 11 multi-camera YouTube videos of the composer’s music.