About Irene

Irene Apanovitch-Leites (she/her/hers) is the Director of Choral Activities at Black Hawk College in Moline, Illinois. Her responsibilities include serving as Assistant Chair in the Department of Art, Design & Performing Arts, conducting the auditioned Chamber Singers and non-auditioned Concert Choir and Community Chorale, and teaching coursework in theory, music literature, and applied voice and piano lessons. Prior to her role at Black Hawk College, she was a guest lecturer in Music Education at Pepperdine University and served as Artistic Director of Torrance Civic Chorale (Torrance, CA), Accord Ensemble (Edmonton, AB) and as Assistant Conductor of I Coristi Chamber Choir (Edmonton, AB). Dr. Apanovitch-Leites holds a DMA in Choral Music from the University of Southern California, a MMus in Choral Conducting from the University of Alberta, and a BMus in Music Education from the University of Toronto.

An active conductor, Dr. Apanovitch-Leites serves as a clinician with collegiate, high school, church, and community ensembles in both Canada and the United States. She has conducted in choral and orchestral masterclasses in Italy, Argentina, Canada and the United States. She was also a semi-finalist in the 2017 ACDA Graduate Conducting Competition and the Apprentice Conductor of the 2014 National Youth Choir of Canada. Her formal conducting studies were with Dr. Jo-Michael Scheibe, Dr. Tram Sparks, Dr. Debra Cairns, Dr. Leonard Ratzlaff, Dr. Doreen Rao and Mr. Simon Carrington.

As a researcher, Dr. Apanovitch-Leites has published in the ACDA Choral Journal, Choral Canada’s Anacrusis, as well as GIA Publication’s Teaching Music Through Performance series. Her current research investigates the role of empathy and perspective-taking in choral music education. An avid advocate for community college choral programs, Dr. Apanovitch-Leites’ doctoral dissertation focused on a case study in Social Perspective-Taking within the framework of Communities of Practice with a community college choral program in California.

Dr. Apanovitch-Leites holds membership in the American Choral Directors Association and serves on the Board of Directors of Illinois-ACDA as the Two-Year College Representative. She is also a member of the National Association for Music Education, and Delta Kappa Gamma Society International.