Emerson Eads
Dr. Emerson Eads is the Director of Choral Studies at Southern Illinois University and an American composer and conductor known for his deeply expressive works centered on themes of social justice. His music reflects a profound commitment to advocacy through art, illuminating urgent and often overlooked human rights issues — a concern for empathy and human connection that also shapes his scholarly writing, including "Empathy and Musical Dialogue in James Buonemani's Missa Miamiensis," published in The Choral Journal. His compositions are published by North Star Music, Alliance Music Publications, ALRY Publications, Earthsongs Choral Music, and Abundant Silence.
A signature work, Mass for the Oppressed, is a striking setting of the Mass Ordinary featuring interpolated texts by his brother Evan Eads and a Credo adapted from the diary of Pope Francis. The piece was composed to raise awareness and public support for the Fairbanks Four—four Indigenous men from Eads' hometown of Fairbanks, Alaska, who were wrongfully imprisoned for eighteen years. Mass for the Oppressed will have its Carnegie Hall premiere in June 2027.
Dr. Eads' opera The Princess Sophia, commemorating the tragic centennial of the SS Princess Sophia shipwreck, premiered in Juneau, Alaska, on October 25, 2018, to glowing reviews in Opera Magazine. During his seven years as Director of Choral Activities at Minot State University, Eads shepherded the choral program through the COVID-19 pandemic, bringing attendance back to levels higher than when he arrived. He launched an apprenticeship program with the Oslo Chamber Choir for Minot State students and led two international tours of Norway, performing numerous concerts with the Telemark Symphony Orchestra and collaborating with the Defrost Youth Choir.
He earned his doctorate in choral conducting from the University of Notre Dame, where he studied under Carmen-Helena Téllez and worked with luminary conductors such as Joseph Flummerfelt, Stephen Cleobury, Anne Howard Jones, and Peter Phillips. Eads studied composition with the Pulitzer Prize–winning Alaskan composer John Luther Adams.
Courses
- MUS 317 - Choral Conducting & Methods
- MUS 366E - Choral Union
- MUS 366F - Concert Choir
- MUS 556 - Advanced Conducting
- MUS 566E-F - Ensemble-Choral Union
Education
- DMA, University of Notre Dame, Choral Conducting, 2018
- MA, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Vocal Performance, 2013
- BM, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Vocal Performance, 2011