Tom Merrill is Chair of the Music Department and Director for Choral Activities at Xavier University, where he conducts the Concert Choir and the Edgecliff Vocal Ensemble. He teaches courses inmusic history, music theory, conducting and secondary choral methods.  Merrill is the Director of Music at the Pleasant Ridge Presbyterian Church in Cincinnati. He is the President-Elect of the American Choral Directors Association Central Division. He has served on the board of ChoralNet and is a past president of the Ohio Choral Directors Association. He has also served on the committees of three Central Division conventions as well as High School and Boy Choir R&S chair for Ohio.

 

He holds a Bachelor of Music Education degree from Rhodes College, Memphis, Tennessee; Master's degrees in Choral Conducting and Musicology from Rice University in Houston, Texas; and a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in choral conducting from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. His teachers include Allen Pote, Tony Lee Garner, Anne Schnoebelen, Gwyn Richards, John Leman, Elmer Thomas and Earl Rivers. He studied with Dale Warland and was chosen to participate as a chorus member of the Oregon Bach Festival in the 1985 anniversary year.

 

Since he began teaching at Xavier in 2002, Merrill’s choirs have twice been selected to sing for the Ohio Music Educators Association convention. His Xavier University Concert Choir has appeared with major arts organizations in Cincinnati including the Cincinnati Pops, Cincinnati Ballet, Museum Center Concert Series, Cincinnati Baroque Orchestra and at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.

 

In addition to his teaching in secondary education, he has taught at Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana and at the graduate level at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.  Merrill has conducted the Cincinnati May Festival Youth Chorus, the University of Cincinnati Women's Chorus, and Rice University Madrigal Singers.  He was assistant conductor and director of educational outreach for the Vocal Arts Ensemble of Cincinnati.  His current research interests lie in the Jesuit inspired compositions of Marc-Antoine Charpentier. His edition of Charpentier’s motet, In Honorem Sancti Xaverij canticum (H. 355) is published by the Society for Seventeenth Century Music.