ISM alums meet Grete Pedersen at the Carmel Bach Festival

The Carmel Bach Festival, which is celebrating its 88th season this year, hosted a meet-and-greet reception in July for ISM alumni and Grete Pedersen, the director of the Carmel Bach Festival and soon-to-be principal conductor of Yale Schola Cantorum and professor in the practice of conducting at the ISM and Yale School of Music. The reception followed a remarkable performance of Bach’s Mass in B Minor with Pedersen conducting and numerous ISM alumni participating. Martin Jean, ISM director, and Yale alumni from diverse fields of study, were delighted to welcome Grete Pedersen into the Yale family.

Professor Pedersen joins Yale from the Norwegian Academy of Music where she served for over thirty years on the conducting faculty and mentored countless students from all over the world who have since gone on to leadership positions in music. In 2025, she ends a thirty-five-year tenure as artistic director of the renowned Norwegian Soloists’ Choir, one of Europe’s leading performing organizations. She led this ensemble in hundreds of performances at home and abroad and made dozens of recordings with them, receiving numerous prizes including Gramophone Record of the Year, the Diapason d’Or, the Choc de la Musique, and the Spellemann Prize. She was also founding conductor of the Oslo Chamber Choir which she led for twenty years. 

Professor Pedersen will begin her career at Yale on January 1, 2026. She will join the ISM’s robust choral program, working alongside professors Jeffrey Douma, director of the Yale Glee Club and Yale Choral Artists and coordinator of Yale’s graduate program in choral conducting; and Felicia Barber, director of the Yale Camerata. She will focus her time on oratorio and early music, as well as contemporary repertoire.

Read the December 2024 announcement about Professor Pedersen’s appointment.