OUR COMPOSERS

Jim Taylor is Professor of Music and Director of Fine Arts at LeTourneau University, a Christian polytechnic university in Longview, Texas, where he conducts two choirs, teaches classes, and oversees the department.  Before this he served for eight years as Director of Choral Activities at Kilgore College, also in East Texas.  Prior to his career in academia, he served as a full-time director of music in large churches for over twenty years in Florida, Colorado, and Alabama, directing children’s and youth choirs, adult, orchestral, and dramatic activities. 

 

Dr. Taylor studied composition at Florida Atlantic University and the University of North Texas, earned a Master of Music degree in Studio Writing and Production from the University of Miami, and completed a doctorate in Choral Conducting at the University of Alabama, where he was the Narramore Scholar.  

 

Jim founded the Jacksonville (FL) Children’s Chorus in 1995 and saw it grow in five years to 100 singers with performances at Disney World, Jaguars Stadium, and Carnegie Hall.  Now under the leadership of Darren Dailey, the JCC is comprised of seven choirs and involves over 500 young people each year (www.jaxchildrenschorus.org).  In East Texas Jim founded and directed the Kilgore College Children’s Chorus under the aegis of Kilgore College.

 

Dr. Taylor annually presents spring concerts of choral/orchestral masterpieces with the LeTourneau Singers, the Longview Civic Chorus, orchestra, and soloists.  Past performances have included the Brahms, Fauré, and Mozart Requiems, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Orff’s Carmina Burana, Dan Forrest’s Requiem for the Living, and other works.  He has conducted the Kyiv Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in Kyiv, Ukraine on four occasions in performances of Mozart’s Mass in C Minor, Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast, Handel’s Dixit Dominus, Britten’s Cantata misericordium, and other music.  He has conducted his Cambridge Songs Suites at Carnegie Hall (No. 1 & 2), and at La Madeleine in Paris (No. 4), through MidAmerica Productions.

 

Jim has an avid interest in racquetball, tennis, reading, good friends, great food, jig saw puzzles, his grandchildren, and growing in his faith in Jesus Christ.  God is good!