Jacksonville SINGS!

Meet Our 2025 Clinician

• Andrew Minear, D.M.A.

  With appearances across the United States, Dr. Andrew Minear is an active conductor, music educator, and choir leader. Dr. Minear is the founding Artistic and Executive Director of  where he conducts the Orlando Sings Symphonic Chorus and the professional vocal ensemble Solaria. He also serves as Director of Music Ministry at All Saints Episcopal Church of Winter Park. Recent or upcoming engagements include ’s production of All is Calm, the National Concert Chorus at Carnegie Hall, the National Youth Chorus at Carnegie Hall, the Seoul Oratorio Festival in South Korea, the American Choral Directors Association Southern Region SSAA Honor Choir, Music and Worship Arts weeks in Lake Junaluska and Montreat, and ten all-state choirs. He has conducted multiple summers at the Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp in Michigan and led the Florida Ambassadors of Music on performance tours of Europe. Before it was cancelled due to the pandemic, Minear was one of only 40 choral leaders in the world selected to present at the 12th World Symposium on Choral Music in Auckland, New Zealand. Dr. Minear’s passion for expressive music-making has been cultivated through two decades of experience in children’s, church, community, middle school, high school, collegiate, and professional choral settings.

  Previously, Dr. Minear was the Director of Choral Activities at the University of Alabama where he conducted University Singers and University Chorus, oversaw the graduate choral conducting program, and taught courses in conducting and choral literature. The UA University Singers performed at the 2018 Alabama Music Educators Association conference, and performances of choral-orchestral works included Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms, Bach’s Missa Brevis in A, Mozart’s Requiem, and the southeastern premier of Jocelyn Hagen’s multi-media symphony, The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci.

  Prior to joining the faculty at the University of Alabama, Minear pursued a doctorate degree in choral conducting at Michigan State University. He served as the director of the MSU Campus Choir and assistant director of the MSU Men’s Glee Club. Under his leadership, the Campus Choir increased in size to over eighty singers and performed their first choral-orchestral work, Borodin’s Polovetsian Dances, with the MSU Concert Orchestra. Michigan State University named Minear a University Distinguished Fellow, and his doctoral project was a study of Graduate Choral Literature Curricula and Pedagogy.

  Over the course of fourteen years in the Orlando-area public schools, Andrew Minear taught middle school and high school Chorus, Music History, Keyboard, Musical Theater, and AP Music Theory. He was the founding Director of Choirs at Lake Buena Vista High School; and during his six years as Choral Director at Dr. Phillips High School, home of the Visual and Performing Arts Magnet for Orange County Public Schools, the Chorus Department grew from 100 to over 240 singers. The DPHS Concert Choir performed with the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra, and Minear’s students were selected over 180 times for All-State and ACDA Honor Choirs. Cora Bella, the advanced SSAA choir, performed to acclaim at State (2011), Southern Division (2012), and National (2013) Conferences of the American Choral Directors Association.

  He holds memberships with the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA), Chorus America, the International Federation of Choral Music, the National Association for Music Education, and the Royal School of Church Music. He has served as Associate Editor of The Choral Scholar, the Journal of the National Collegiate Choral Organization, and on the boards of Alabama ACDA, Florida ACDA, the Florida Vocal Association, and the Michigan School Vocal Music Association.

  Dr. Minear has attended conducting workshops with Rodney Eichenberger, Simon Halsey and Helmuth Rilling; and he was recognized as a finalist for the 2015 American Prize in Conducting. Dr. Minear received his Doctor of Musical Arts degree in choral conducting from Michigan State University where he studied with Dr. David Rayl, Dr. Jonathan Reed, and Dr. Sandra Snow. He received his Bachelor of Music Education and Master of Music Education from Florida State University where he studied with Dr. Judy Bowers, Dr. Kevin Fenton, and Dr. André Thomas. He holds a Certificate in Grant Writing and Nonprofit Management through the University of Central Florida.