Mark Bartel, DMA

Mark Bartel is a versatile conductor and music educator who joined the faculty at Ambrose University in 2019 as Associate Professor of Music.  Dr. Bartel teaches in the areas of choral ensembles and conducting, vocal studies, and the history of music in worship, and he conducts the Ambrose University Singers and the Ambrose University Voices.  Since arriving in Calgary, he has been appointed Artistic Director of the Spiritus Chamber Choir and Chorusmaster of the Calgary Philharmonic Chorus.        

A native of Niagara-on-the-Lake, ON, his career has taken him to several cities in the United States and Canada.  He has held teaching positions at Steinbach Bible College, Canadian Mennonite University, Western University, and Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Geneva, NY.  As Director of Choral Music at Friends University (Wichita, KS) from 2005-2019, he oversaw a program of 170 singers and four choirs. Dr. Bartel also served as Artistic Director and Conductor of the Wichita Chamber Chorale and the Wichita Community Children’s Choir, as well as president of the Kansas Choral Directors Association.  While in Wichita, he led his choirs in numerous invitational performances at Kansas Music Educators Association and regional American Choral Directors Association conventions. He led the 70-voice Friends University Singing Quakers on annual tours throughout the United States, as well as Canada, Germany, Italy, and Costa Rica, and conducted the choir in Vienna with Mid-America Productions and the Symphonisches Orchester Wien in 2019. 

In the wider choral community Dr. Bartel is sought after as a clinician, presenter, and adjudicator.  He is a frequent guest conductor for honour choirs and festivals for singers of all ages.  He has held music ministry positions in both Winnipeg and Dallas, and presents workshops on church music and worship.  As a conductor of choral-orchestral works, he has led the Mennonite Oratorio Choir and members of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra and regularly conducted Friends University choirs and the Wichita Chamber Chorale in choral masterworks.  He has prepared choruses for performance with professional orchestras in Winnipeg, London, ON, Rochester, NY and Wichita and has worked with Maestros Bramwell Tovey, Timothy Vernon, Christopher Seaman, Daniel Hege, and Peter Tiboris.  As an orchestral conductor he has been artistic director of several youth and community orchestras in Manitoba and Ontario. 

Dr. Bartel’s doctoral research centered upon Baroque musical-rhetorical thought and the choral music of 18th-century Bohemian composer, Jan Dismas Zelenka.  His current research focuses on how choirs around the world engage in active peace-building through the choral experience.  Dr. Bartel was honoured with the 2018 W.A. Young Award for Teaching Excellence at Friends University and is a past recipient of the Canada Council’s prestigious Sir Ernest Macmillan Prize in Conducting.  A graduate of the University of Winnipeg and the Mennonite Brethren Bible College, he holds the Master of Music and Master of Sacred Music degrees from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, TX, and the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in conducting from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY.