Lynda Hasseler

Professor of Music and Director of Choral Activities

Department

• Music

Contact Information

• 614-236-6243
• lhassele@capital.edu
• Conservatory Complex 208

Biography

Lynda R. Hasseler, D.M.A., assumed the directorship of the renowned Capital University Chapel Choir in July, 1990, making her the first woman to head a choral program at a Lutheran college or university. As Professor of Music and Director of Choral Activities in the Conservatory of Music, Dr. Hasseler has nurtured Capital University’s rich choral legacy. The choirs under her direction have received numerous invitations to perform for multiple music regional and national conferences and festivals, have been awarded gold medals in world choral competitions and have toured nationally and internationally. Passionate about dynamic programming, she creates narrative, theme-based concerts that “tell a story.” She is co-editor of the Capital University Choral Series published by Beckenhorst Press. Dr. Hasseler made her Carnegie Hall conducting debut in performances of Leonard Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms and Eriks Ešenvalds’ Trinity Te Deum.

As a clinician, presenter and guest conductor, she performs regionally, nationally and internationally. She, along with the Chapel Choir and Choral Union, and composer Jake Runestad, was awarded the 2017-18 American Prize, Ernst Bacon Memorial Award for the Performance of American Music. She had the honor of conducting the Chapel Choir in the premiere performance of the Brock Commission A Silence Haunts Me by Jake Runestad at the 2019 ACDA National Conference in Kansas City. She recently shared the podium with guest conductor and composer Eric Whitacre on Mees Hall stage in a 2019 Gala celebration of 100 Years of Music at Capital University. In June, 2019, she conducted the Chapel Choir in festival concerts in the Netherlands and Belgium. In March, 2020, she returned to Carnegie Hall stage to conduct the Chapel Choir in performance of A Silence Haunts Me and she conducted a 280-voice festival chorus with orchestra performing Dona Nobis Pacem by Ralph Vaughan Williams.