Michelle Gehrz — CHILDREN’s CHOIRS

Michelle Gehrz loves sharing her passion and joy as a music educator, church musician, choral conductor and accompanist throughout the Twin Cities area. She has taught every age singer from 5 – 85 and has loved them all! She is on the artistic team of Angelica Cantanti Youth Choirs, where she directs four choirs, leads and accompanies summer camps, and teaches private voice and piano. She also teaches privately at her home in Plymouth while she is currently on leave from the Wayzata School District. Her teaching career has spanned all grade levels K-12 including: Mounds Park Academy in St. Paul for half of her teaching career, St. Croix Preparatory Academy in Stillwater where she started the middle school and high school choral program, and Birchview Elementary in the Wayzata District where she co-founded the All-District Elementary Choir of 80 singers. They were invited to perform at MMEA in 2018. Ms. Gehrz is Founder and Artistic Director of Bella Lumina - an adult treble choir in the Twin Cities. She accompanies for numerous ACDA Honor Choirs and the MMEA All-State SSAA Choir. She is the current Chair of Repertoire and Standards for Children’s and Youth Choirs for ACDA-MN. As a church musician she has served as organist/director at many churches including the Cathedral of St. Paul, Lake of the Isles Lutheran, Mount Calvary Lutheran (Excelsior), and Minnetonka UMC. Michelle received her undergraduate degrees from St. Olaf College in Church Music and Music Education, the Master of Music degree from the University of Notre Dame in Sacred Music/Organ Performance. She has completed all but her thesis at the University of St. Thomas for the Master of Arts program in Music Education (Orff emphasis). Michelle is especially grateful to share today with HER childhood music teacher and mentor, Chris Starr, with whom she studied piano and choir in the Howard Lake-Waverly-Winsted District from elementary through high school.