Artistic Staff & Board

MARY KAY GESTON has been Great River Chorale’s artistic director since 2010 and artistic managing director since 2015. Previously she was on the music faculties at UNW, CU Boulder, and was director of choral activities at NSU. She also taught at UWRF, UMTC, UMN-Morris, CSP, and St. Olaf College, and conducted the MMTA Honors Concert. Geston was founding director of the Fargo Moorhead Choral Artists and Minneapolis Vocal Consort, associate conductor of Longmont Chorale, director of MN Chorale’s Voices of Experience, and directed church choirs for 21 years.

Choirs under her direction have performed at professional conferences of ACDA, Chorus America, MMEA, and SDMEA, and she has prepared choirs for the SCSO and MN Orchestra. She has directed all-state and honor choirs in CO, MN, KY, ND, SD and WI, was a guest conductor in Taiwan and South Korea, and has been a clinician or panelist at professional conferences for ACDA, AGO, CMS, NAfME, and NATS. An accomplished soprano, she has sung professionally with the Robert Shaw Festival Singers and as a soloist with orchestras in MN, CO, ND, and SD.

Geston received ACDA-MN’s 2012 Choral Director of the Year award and has held many positions in ACDA including as president of ACDA North Central (now Midwestern) Region, president of ACDA-MN, and chair of the F. Melius Christiansen Endowment Fund Committee. Mary Kay holds a DMA degree in choral literature and conducting from CU, an MM degree in choral conducting from UMTC, and a BA in voice performance and teaching certification from NDSU.

BARBARA BROOKS is an active collaborative pianist, vocal coach, and music director in the Twin Cities and Saint Cloud. She has worked with Great River Chorale since 2015 and is in her 36^th year as pianist and choral advisor for the Minnesota Chorale. Barb is also in her third year as music director of Woven Voices, a Twin Cities chamber choir for experienced sopranos and altos from various Minnesota-based choirs.

Ms. Brooks has served as a vocal coach for the Minnesota Opera’s Resident Artist program and currently is on the music staff of the Wesley Balk Institute. Previously she was music director at First Unitarian Society in Minneapolis for 33 years. Ms. Brooks has worked with various opera companies including Canadian Opera, Minnesota Opera, New Orleans Opera, Opera Banff, Berkshire Opera, Des Moines Metro Opera, Kentucky Opera, as well as the University of Minnesota Opera and University of North Texas Opera programs.

Barb has been a music director for Theatre de la Jeune Lune and The Minneapolis Children’s Theatre Company, and coached opera at universities in Texas, Colorado and Minnesota. Barb holds a master’s degree in piano performance from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and has studied with György Sándor, Martin Isepp, and at England’s Britten-Pears School.