Dr. Deborah Simpkin King is a choral and vocal performer and educator, working primarily in the northern New Jersey/NYC area. As Artistic Director and Founder of the innovative choral ensemble Schola Cantorum on Hudson, her choral work is favorably reviewed. She is Director of Music at The First Presbyterian Church (Ramsey, NJ), has an independent voice studio in Essex County, NJ, and is the alto in the professional vocal quartet Chantez!. She frequently guest-conducts and provides choral workshop sessions, focusing on vocal production, sight reading, and other matters of the choral art.

The thread of continuity that connects Dr. King's various activities is her fundamental belief that music is a gift, possessing the potential for profound impact on the human spirit, which can nurture all of us throughout our lives. It is this perspective that informs all of her activities, from polished performances to vigorous insistence on the development of fluency in sight singing. One reflection of and for which new material is commissioned annually. Equally consistent within her mission is the programming and polishing of performances for maximum impact on all those sharing them.

Dr. King is an active member of Chorus America, Classical Singer Society, the National Association for Teachers of Singing, Conductors Guild, the Royal School of Church Music, and the American Guild of Organists. She is privileged to have served on the NJ-ACDA Board of Directors since 1991.

Dr. King holds a Ph.D. in Musicology from the University of North Texas; a Master of Music in Music Education from North Texas State University; and a Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance from Texas Christian University. Her mentor of twenty years was Caro Carapetyan, whose choral work was the subject of Dr. King's master's thesis ( Caro Carapetyan: His Choral Beliefs and Practices, 1981). Dr. King is also a published editor and writer. Her edition of full anthems by Baroque composer John Blow, published by Oxford University Press, has been very favorably reviewed, and her dissertation, The Full Anthems and Services of John Blow and the Question of an English Stile Antico, was honored with the 1990 University of North Texas Graduate Dean's Dissertation Award for Scholarly Communication.

Dr. King has two sons: Patrick Daniel, Segment Producer with Comedy Central's The Daily Show; and Michael Alexander, a recent graduate of Westminster Choir College, and Manager of Wilson House, of the Christian Union, in Princeton. Michael will be entering seminary in the fall of 2009.