PROFILE

Born and raised in Connecticut’s Litchfield Hills, Christopher Eanes has studied conducting, voice, and piano at Occidental College, the University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music, and with several teachers in Milan, Italy. Mr. Eanes built the choral department at Blair Academy, a private boarding school in northwestern New Jersey, where the choirs regularly earned top marks in competition and toured internationally. In February of 2004 the Blair Academy Singers performed by invitation at Verizon Hall in Philadelphia, home of the Philadelphia Orchestra. In his time at Blair, Mr. Eanes also conducted numerous musical theatre productions, and was nominated for a regional Freddy Award for Best Orchestra Direction in 2004.

Mr. Eanes holds a master’s degree in choral music from the USC Thornton School of Music, and is continuing his doctoral work on the same campus. In October of 2006, Mr. Eanes produced and conducted a University-funded production of Purcell’s Dido & Aeneas; as a direct result of this project, Mr. Eanes was appointed Artistic Director of the Chamber Opera of USC, in which capacity he oversees and conducts several productions annually. The 2007-2008 season, his first full season as director, included a production of Menotti’s Amahl and the Night Visitors, an opera scenes program, and a commissioned work based on famous Shakespeare scenes. In the field of opera, Mr. Eanes has also served as Chorus Master and Assistant Conductor to the USC Thornton Opera’s productions of Mozart's Idomeneo, Bellini's I capuleti e i montecchi, and Britten's The Rape of Lucretia. As a performer, he has sung in Los Angeles with the USC Thornton Choral Artists under the direction of Christoph von Dohnányi, Carl St. Clair, and William Dehning, and in the USC Chamber Choir with Paul Salamunovich. Mr. Eanes is the Director of Music at Sherman Oaks Presbyterian Church, and spends June and July of each summer coaching gifted high school musicians at the Hotchkiss Summer Portals chamber music program in Lakeville, CT.

Mr Eanes was recently appointed Artistic Director of the Cincinnati Boychoir, a post he will assume in June of 2009.