John William Trotter, D.M.A.

Conductor John William Trotter interacts with musicians and audiences to celebrate the gift of music and its powerful place in human identity. As the inaugural John and Anita Nelson Distinguished Chair of Sacred Choral Music and Conducting at the Wheaton College Conservatory of Music, he leads the Concert Choir and helps train a new generation of conductors and artistic leaders.

With the Concert Choir, Trotter has led interdisciplinary collaborations with dancers, painters, and actors, and direct engagement with audiences in concert halls, homeless shelters, and prisons. Most recently, the ensemble has toured Messiah Project, a collaboratively designed re-imagining of Handel’s masterwork, combining interdisciplinary elements with spoken word, choral memorization, and performative conviction.

Trotter has conducted more than a dozen professional choirs and orchestras on three continents, where his performances have attracted special attention for their freshness and authenticity.  His ensembles have been recorded, broadcast widely, and honored with invitations to perform live at national, regional, and state conventions of the American Choral Directors’ Association, Chorus America, and the National Association for Music Education.  During a 2019/20 sabbatical, Trotter spent two terms as a Visiting Fellow at the University of Cambridge (UK) teaching in the Masters in Choral Studies program. He has led residencies, performances, masterclasses, speaking engagements, leadership development initiatives, and organizational consulting throughout the United States, Canada, Sweden, Greece, Mexico, and Kenya.

Trotter earned the Doctorate in Conducting from the University of Michigan, undertaking further advanced studies with Eric Ericson, Helmuth Rilling, Andrew Parrott, and Jon Washburn. His conducting students have distinguished themselves by taking up significant positions, gaining entrance to the top-ranked graduate programs in North America, and earning national recognition at the ACDA Student Conducting Competition. In 2018, Trotter received the Leland Ryken Award for Teaching Excellence in the Humanities.

Trotter is well known for his ability to connect with audiences and for his interest in building bridges between the professional music world, music training institutions, and the wider community. An experienced improviser, he is an advocate for the recovery of this musical skill among amateurs and professionals alike, and his compositions and arrangements have been widely performed. Off-campus, Trotter serves as Artistic Director of the professional vocal ensemble Chicago a cappella, recently acclaimed by Fanfare magazine as “one of the country’s best professional choirs.”

University of Michigan
D.M.A. conducting, 2009

University of Michigan
M.M. conducting, 2007

The Royal Conservatory
A.R.C.T. piano performance, 2000

University of British Columbia
B.M. general studies, 1998

• Choral conducting
• Orchestral conducting
• Leadership development
• The arts and society