Beverly Taylor

Beverly Taylor
Beverly Taylor, Emerita Professor of Music at University of Wisconsin-Madison and Director of the Madison Symphony Chorus, is a frequent guest conductor at festivals throughout the United States. She has been recognized by critic Richard Dyer (The Boston Globe) as a conductor who "has the crucial gift of inspiring people to give of their best, and beyond."

Taylor assumed the post of Director of Choral Activities at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1995, where she served as director of the Concert Choir and the Choral Union, and led the graduate choral conducting program until her retirement in 2020. From 1989-2012, she was conductor of the Boston Bar Association Orchestra, and for seven years the Music Director of the Back Bay Chorale, in which she conducted concerts with the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra and other professional orchestras. Their recording of Robert Kyr's Passion According to Four Evangelists is available on the New Albion label. She served as Assistant Conductor of the Madison Symphony Orchestra from 1996-2018.

In 1995, Taylor completed 17 years as the Associate Director of Choral Activities at Harvard University. In this position, she directed both the prize-winning Radcliffe Choral Society and the Harvard-Radcliffe Chorus. She led the groups on frequent domestic and international tours, directed a number of premieres of American music, and produced two recordings on the AFKA label.

As a guest conductor, Taylor has led the Artur Rubinstein Philharmonic Orchestra in Poland, the St. Louis Symphony Chorus, the Vermont Symphony, the Harvard Chamber Orchestra, the Madison Opera, the U.S. Air Force Band and Orchestra, the Harvard Radcliffe Collegium Musicum, and the Wellesley Chamber Singers. She worked with John Williams to prepare for a July 4th concert with the Boston Pops Summer Esplanade Chorus.

A graduate of the University of Delaware and Boston University, Taylor studied with Gustav Meier, Paul Vermel, Andrew Davis, Helmuth Rilling, Robert Shaw, Margaret Hillis, and Herbert Blomstedt. She received a fellowship from Chorus America and an orchestral fellowship from Aspen. She was a 2016 finalist for the American Prize in choral conducting, college division, and a 2017 recipient of the Emily Mead Baldwin Award in the Creative Arts at UW-Madison.