Dr. Deborah Simpkin King

Deborah Simpkin King, Ph.D., is a choral conductor, new music advocate, and master teacher. She plays an active role in the vibrant Manhattan choral scene and serves the national and international music community through her guest conducting and body of published work.  

Her current conducting affiliations include those as Founding Artistic Director of the semi-professional Ember, of Ember Choral Arts (formerly Schola Cantorum on Hudson); as Director of Music and Arts at the historic Trinity Episcopal Church in Asbury Park, NJ; and a conductor within Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival. 

Ember Choral Arts is the parent organization of PROJECT : ENCORE™, an international advocacy initiative founded by Dr. King that promotes post-premiere performances of new music. Through PROJECT : ENCORE, she is at the leading edge of the new music industry, working with composers in finding post-premiere performances, and performing many premieres and post-premieres, herself.  

Supplementing her work in the not-for-profit and professional conducting arena, Dr. King frequently works as a professor, and has guided several university choral programs through times of transition, most recently serving as the Interim Director of Choral Activities at William Paterson University (WPU).

Dr. King is a frequent guest conductor. She was one of five conductors chosen to work with Simon Halsey in the 2016 premiere preparation and performance of David Lang’s new commission, ‘the public domain,’ calling for 1000 voices, in celebration of the 50-year anniversary of Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival. She served similarly in 2018’s Mostly Mozart Festival for the premiere by John Luther Adams of In the Name of the Earth.  She also recently guest conducted for the Tlaxcala Canta choral festival in Tlaxcala, Mexico. 

As a monthly columnist with ACDA’s The Choral Journal, and host of public radio’s Sounds Choral, (syndicated through WWFM), Dr. King serves the music community internationally. King also serves as Chair of the New York Choral Consortium (NYCC), served as coordinator of the NJ-ACDA HS Choral Festival between 1994 and 2018, and is a frequent presenter at professional conferences on choral consortia and new music.