Artistic Director

Matthew Christopher Shepard, Conductor / Artistic Director

E-mail: matthew@te-deum.org

Matthew Christopher Shepard, a Kansas City native, is founder, conductor, and artistic director of Te Deum, a chamber vocal ensemble. Perceiving a need for high caliber sacred choral music in Kansas City, he launched this new ensemble in 2008. In the Fall of 2010 Matthew accepted the position as Music Director of the Atchison-Benedictine College Symphony Orchestra.

In Kansas City Mr. Shepard conducted many ensembles. At the age of twenty-two he was selected to be the first conducting intern with the Fine Arts Chorale of Kansas City, and a year later took on the role of assistant conductor, a position he held from 2004-2009. While attending the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory he served as a graduate conducting assistant, conducting multiple choral ensembles and the conservatory orchestra. He has also conducted two productions with the Kansas City Metro Opera. Recently he has conducted professional orchestras in performances of Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Hindemith, Poulenc, Mozart, and Vaughan Williams. In the summer of 2009 Mr. Shepard was awarded a fellowship to study for five weeks at the Conductors Institute at Bard Conservatory with Maestros Harold Farberman and Leon Botstein.

Mr. Shepard also holds the position of Associate Director of Music at Village Presbyterian Church in Prairie Village, where, among other ensembles, he conducts the Village Voices youth choir and the Village Youth Orchestra. Village Voices, a group which he founded in 2003 has grown from six members to over forty, has released its first professionally produced recording, and participates weekly in worship services. They have been heard in concert performances of Mendelssohn’s St Paul and Fauré’s Requiem. The Village Youth Orchestra, which he founded in 2006, includes some of Kansas City’s finest high school players, and participates regularly in worship services at several churches throughout the Kansas City area. They are commended for their moving performances of great repertoire, including works by Bach, Vivaldi, Corelli, Mozart, Barber, Grieg, Sibelius, and Tchaikovsky.

Beginning his musical studies in flute and voice, Mr. Shepard holds an undergraduate degree from William Jewell College and two Master’s Degrees in music from the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory of Music and Dance. His principal conducting professors have been Dr. Arnold Epley, Dr. Ryan Board, and Dr. Robert Olson. Additionally, Mr. Shepard has participated in conducting master classes with Leon Botstein, Apu Hsu, Lawrence Golan, Raymond Harvey, Jerry McCoy, Peter Bagley, William Dehning, and Andrew Megill.