Conductor, educator, and singer. Stephanie Council is an assistant professor of Choral Music at the University of Nevada Las Vegas where she conducts the University Chorale and Chamber Consort and teaches Choral Conducting, Choral Literature, and Choral Methods. Council’s primary areas of study include conducting, choral pedagogy, concert programming, and early music performance practice.

An experienced educator at the middle school through adult community levels, Council is passionate about choral pedagogy related to the development of individual music literacy, collective sound building, and the cultivation of inclusive and affirming learning environments. Council previously led the choral programs at Simpson College and Mount Holyoke College. She is the recipient of multiple awards for her teaching including the Best New Faculty award given by the Mount Holyoke Student Government Association and the Helen DeVitt Jones Excellence in Graduate Teaching award for courses she taught at Texas Tech University.

She is a sought-after lecturer in choral music education and conductor of collegiate, high school, and youth honor choirs around the United States, and she was a graduate finalist in the American Choral Directors Association National Conducting Competition. Her most recent engagements include conducting the 2021 Pride of Iowa Honor Choir, 2019 Vermont Northwest District Honor Choir, and serving as a faculty conducting fellow at the Summer Choral Festival at Westminster Choir College. She has conducted clinics and honor choirs in Oklahoma, Texas, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Iowa, and has upcoming engagements in Nevada and Michigan.

A strong proponent of new music, Council is an active commissioner and performer of new works. In the fall of 2022, she will serve as the Chorus Master for the new opera Letters to Lily with the Las Vegas Opera.

Council sings professionally with mirabai and the San Antonio Chamber Choir. In the past, she has been engaged to sing with the Philadelphia Symphonic Choir and at the Spoleto Festival USA. She has served on the board of the Massachusetts chapter of the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA) and the National Board of the National Collegiate Choral Organization (NCCO). She has extensive experience conducting church choirs and assisting with worship planning.

Council received a doctor of musical arts degree in choral conducting and a graduate certificate in early music performance practice from Texas Tech University. She holds a Master of Music with distinction in choral conducting from Westminster Choir College and a bachelor of music degrees in both vocal music education and vocal music performance from Oklahoma State University.