Conference Team

CARI EARNHART
Conference Chair

Dr. Cari Earnhart serves as the Director of Choral Activities at California State University, Fresno, where she conducts the top choral ensembles and teaches graduate conducting. The Fresno State Choirs maintain an active performing profile. In 2022, under her direction, the Fresno State Concert Choir was selected to perform at the California All-State Music Educators Conference (CASMEC) and in April 2017 the Fresno State Chamber Singers were invited to perform at the Library of Congress to honor the 21st US Poet Laureate, Juan Felipe Herrera. Earnhart is active as a guest conductor, clinician and adjudicator and has worked with choirs throughout the US and abroad. Abroad she served as DCA at the American University of Sharjah in the UAE and as artistic director of Nassim al Saba, an Arabic choral music ensemble. She has been a guest conductor with the Budapesti Vándor Kórus, and the Istanbul International Chamber Choir; she served as Maestro of Ensemble Vocale Tempus Floridum and as Maestro Collaboratore of Coro dell’ Accademia del Diletto and Coro Polofonico del Caricentro, all in Florence. She frequently presents workshops on Arabic choral music, vocal pedagogy and conducting. From 2016-2020, she served on the ACDA Western Region Board as R & R Repertoire Specific Chair, Conference Chair for the 2022, 2024 & 2026 Western Region Conferences. She currently serves as the 2025 ACDA National Interest Session Chair and served as a co-chair for the Indigenous People’s Immersion Choir for the 2023 National Conference. Earnhart also serves on the California Choral Directors Association Board (CCDA), is President of the Fresno Madera Counties Music Educators Association (FMCMEA) Board of Directors and is on the CMEA Central Section Board. She holds BM and MM degrees in Vocal Performance/Pedagogy from Oklahoma State University and a DMA in Choral Conducting from the University of North Texas.

Honor Choirs

MARC MCGEE
Honor Choir Co-Chair

Marc McGhee is a Learning Director at Lemoore High School in Lemoore, CA, located in the San Joaquin Valley. Marc has worked with a variety of singers and students from a variety of backgrounds. He has been in education for the past 5 years. Prior to his career, Marc received his BA in Music with an option in Vocal Performance in May 2018. He received his MA in Music with an option in Choral Conducting in December 2020. In addition to his profession in public education, Marc has chaired the Western Region Honor choirs beginning in 2022. He also chairs the CCDA Central Region Honor Choirs. 

“Don’t forget what you have and what you offer and who you are; whether this continues or not; fight for yourself!” ~Kristin Chenoweth

VIVIAN SANTOS
Honor Choir Co-Chair

Vivian Santos is the Choral and Musical Theatre Director at Sierra Pacific High School in Hanford, California located in the San Joaquin Valley. She has held this position for eight years. Prior to becoming a public school teacher, she ran her own private voice and piano studio for two years. Vivian earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in Music Education with an emphasis in Choir and Voice from California State University, Fresno in May 2016. Vivian is heavily influenced by her Portuguese heritage and has been a Fadista (performer of Fado music) since she was sixteen years old. She was nominated and won Portuguese-American Artist of the Year for SOPAS (Society of Portuguese-American Students) in 2018 in which she was recognized by Tulare County, The California Senate, and the United States Congress. Vivian also served as the Western Region Honor Choir Co-Chair in 2024.

Composer Track

JENNIFER LUCY COOK

Jennifer Lucy Cook (she/her) is a composer and lyricist based in Los Angeles. Jen specializes in music for the stage and screen, choral work, and pop songwriting. Recent choral commissions include Phoenix Chorale, the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus, and Vox Femina. She is the recipient of the Chorus Austin Composition Prize, the Cantus Emerging Composer Award, the HerVoice Female Composer Prize, and the Edwin Fissinger Composition Prize. She is an alumnus of the Johnny Mercer Foundation Writer’s Grove with Goodspeed Musicals, and her recent dark comedy musical Salem recently underwent a professional development and industry reading in New York, with plans for a full commercial production in 2025. Other theater commissions include Full House Theatre Co., British Youth Musical Theatre, and Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London, and her musical recaps of the Bachelor recently went viral on TikTok. She earned a Master’s degree in Musical Theater Writing from Goldsmiths University in London and a Bachelor’s in Media Music from Brigham Young University. Despite writing music in such a wide range of genres, Jen’s music is united by a keen love for storytelling with song. She prioritizes specific, highly emotional lyrics, melodic earworms, and infectious rhythmic grooves, and conceives of every piece from a dramatic, narrative-driven perspective.
@jenlucycook