Dr. Mary Young is a conductor, clinician, lecturer, singer and pianist from Rochester, New York. She holds a B.A. in piano performance and an M.A. in choral conducting from Pensacola Christian College and a Doctor of Musical Arts in choral conducting from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. She has conducted high school, collegiate, community, church and children’s choirs. She currently serves as Director of Music and Worship Arts at Saint Paul United Methodist Church in Lincoln, Nebraska, and as an Adjunct Professor of Music at Concordia University, Nebraska.
Her primary field of research is Native American choral music, and she enjoys working closely with Native composers and languages. She is co-editor of the Native American Choral Series with Hinshaw Music and created the first-ever First Nations Choral Festival in Spring 2024, which featured exclusively Native American music in all-Native languages.
Dr. Young completed 100 hours of research on underrepresented composers for the Institute for Composer Diversity in 2023. She also updated and expanded Dr. Marques Garrett’s list Beyond Elijah Rock: The Non-Idiomatic Choral Music of Black Composers as the Diversity-in-Action intern for the New York Choral Consortium in 2021.
When she is not studying, teaching or performing, Mary enjoys cooking, hiking and traveling.