Dr. Stephen Bolster retired in 2019 as the Mary W. McGaw Endowed Chair in Music at Berea College where he taught for 39 years and served as Chairperson of the Music Department for 15 of those years. Professor of Music, he conducted the Concert Choir and Chamber Singers, and applied voice, vocal methods, conducting, music senior seminar, and occasional classes in music theory and music literature. He is currently the Co-Artistic Director of the Kentucky Bach Choir, a 24-voice professional-level choir in Lexington, KY.

Under his direction, the Berea College Concert Choir and Chamber Singers toured annually in the eastern United States for four decades. He and the choir also traveled on five international concert tours, including trips to the Balkans in 2018, Spain and Portugal in 2014, China in 2007, Italy and Switzerland in 2002, and central and Eastern Europe in 1994. The choirs were featured in two Christmas special concerts for educational television aired throughout the mid-South, in a Christmas special concert that was broadcast throughout the 2010 Christmas season on the Kentucky Educational Television Network, and in a nationally-televised Christmas Eve Concert on CBS in 2016. The Concert Choir also performed several times for the Kentucky Music Educators Association annual In-Service Conference, and twice re dived prizes for performances at the American Negro Spiritual Competition in Cincinnati’s famous Music Hall. The choirs performed in many of the world’s most prestigious concert venues and churches, including the Conservatory in Xian, China, the Vatican, the Sagrada Familia, the Duomo in Sienna, Italy, the Jesuitenkirche in Lucerne, Switzerland, the Abby in Melk, Austria, the Domkirche in Salzburg, Austria, Constitution Hall, the National Cathedral, and the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC, and the Bahá’i National Temple in Wilmette, IL.

Dr. Bolster has a long record of leadership and service to the American Choral Directors Association. He served two terms as President of KY-ACDA and five years as Southern Division Chair of College and University Choirs for ACDA. For four years he was the Kentucky State Chairperson of the Youth and Student Activities Committee. In the fall of 2000, Bolster spent twelve days in China as a member of an ACDA select choral delegation of the People to People Ambassador Program. In July, 2002, Bolster received the KY-ACDA’s highest honor—the Robert Baar Choral Excellence Award, for his active service to the organization and his dedication to choral music excellence in the state.

A recipient of many other honors and awards, Bolster was chosen as the 1999-2000 College-University Teacher of the Year by the Kentucky Music Educators Association. He also received numerous awards from Berea College, including the Seabury Award for Excellence in Teaching (Spring, 1988), the Presidential Award for Excellence (Spring, 1995), and the Man of the Year Award (Spring, 1995). In 1997, he was named the Phi Kappa Phi Professor of the Year. In the fall of 2012, he and his wife, Sandy, Director of Developmental Math at Berea College, were made Honorary Alumni of the institution. From 1996-1999 he was a member of the prestigious Robert Shaw Festival Singers, performing many concert in Carnegie Hall.

Dr. Bolster was frequently featured as a guest lecturer, clinician, and adjudicator in Kentucky and Tennessee. An expert in acoustical phonetics, especially vowel modification, formant tuning, and choral blend, he has presented lectures on these topics to several professional music organizations and at colleges and universities in surrounding states.