Stuart Chapman Hill

ABOUT

Stuart Chapman Hill, Ph.D., is a conductor, composer, teacher, and scholar who serves as Assistant Professor of Choral Music Education at Michigan State University. At MSU, he teaches courses in music education foundations, choral methods, and music education philosophy, and conducts the Campus Choir.

Previously, Hill served for eight years as Director of Music Education and Associate Professor of Music at Webster University in St. Louis, MO, where he taught courses in music education and songwriting and conducted the treble-voice choir Aurelia. In 2022, he won Webster’s William T. Kemper Award for Excellence in Teaching. He also served for seven years as Artistic Director of CHARIS, the St. Louis Women’s Chorus, an ensemble devoted to celebrating and encouraging women and the LGBTQIA+ community. His previous teaching experience includes working with high school singers at the prestigious Governor’s School of North Carolina and teaching middle school chorus in Greensboro, NC.

As a scholar, Hill studies and writes about musicianship and creativity. Recent projects focus on the musicianship and learning practices of professional songwriters in Nashville, Tennessee. He is a co-author, along with Dr. Jill Reese and Dr. Krystal McCoy, of Q&A for MLT: Choral Music Perspectives on Music Learning Theory, which was released in 2023 by GIA. His peer-reviewed articles appear in the Journal of Research in Music Education, Research Studies in Music Education, the Journal of Music, Technology, & Education, the Philosophy of Music Education Review, Choral Journal, and the Journal of Music Teacher Education.

Hill is a choral composer and arranger whose works are published with Hinshaw, G. Schirmer, Galaxy Music, and Gentry Publications. He has been commissioned by school and church choral groups around the United States and is especially passionate about creating high-quality choral works for performance by middle school ensembles.

Hill earned his Ph.D. at Michigan State University, where he studied music education and choral conducting. His undergraduate and master’s degrees are from Vanderbilt University.