Phil Clary, Artistic Director
A native Cincinnatian, Phil Clary is also the Director of Music at Indian Hill Church and a teacher in the Music Department at Indian Hill High School. Phil is a member of the Cincinnati Fusion Ensemble, comprised of nationally and internationally renowned singers, based in the Cincinnati, Ohio area. His professional choral experience also includes singing with the Vocal Arts Ensemble of Cincinnati for several seasons. Mr. Clary earned a Bachelor of Music Education in Vocal Music degree from Northern Kentucky University and a Master of Educational Leadership degree from Xavier University. He also completed a year of choral conducting studies at the University of Cincinnati (CCM) under Dr. Stephen Coker. Phil enjoys travel, theater, and good restaurants. He and his wife, Erin, are active in the foreign exchange program YFU (Youth for Understanding), and they have hosted several high school and college students who have come to the U.S. for educational and cultural experiences.
Lisa Peters, Assistant Conductor
Lisa Peters is a graduate of Ithaca College School of Music in Ithaca, New York where she received a Bachelor of Music Education with an emphasis in Choral Music. In addition she holds a Master’s Degree in Education with Music Emphasis from Xavier University. Originally from the state of Vermont, Ms. Peters taught high school choir in the Cincinnati area for 30 years, first at Amelia High School and then at Walnut Hills High School. Since her retirement from public school teaching, Ms. Peters has stayed active as a local choral educator. She held the adjunct choral director position at Mount Saint Joseph University for three years. Presently, she is on the staff of the Cincinnati Boychoir where she is a conductor as well as the director of their music literacy program. In addition to her assistant conductor role with the Cincinnati Choral Society, she is also a member of the CCS board.
Meet The Next Artistic Director of CCS!
Scot Buzza, future Artistic Director
The Cincinnati Choral Society (CCS) is pleased to announce the selection of our incoming Artistic Director, Dr. Scot Buzza. As a professional choral conductor with several decades of experience in choral music in both university and community environments, Dr. Buzza looks forward to building upon the five decades of quality choral experiences for singers and audiences in Greater Cincinnati. He brings experience fostering highly invested and engaged communities of choral music, as well as an audience that continues to support choral singing. Choir members will benefit from his extensive experience coaching singers in a full range of genres from liturgical music and classical art song to musical theater and contemporary repertoire.
Dr. Buzza currently serves as a professor of musicology, and conductor of the Early Music Collective at the University of Kentucky, as well as director of the KIIS institute in Salzburg, Austria, where he has taught since 2009. Academic experience includes 12 years teaching the graduate sacred music core curriculum at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. As a professor at several regional Universities, he led undergraduate and graduate music courses in music history, aural skills, music theory, and conducting.
His background includes a high level of professional musical skills and experience, beginning with more than 18 years as a full-time orchestral musician in Tokyo, Barcelona, and Cincinnati and prizes in international chamber music competitions. With several decades of experience as a professional choral conductor both in the U.S. and Austria, the new CCS Artistic Director brings a high level of proficiency in piano and organ, with special skill in accompanying, harmonizing, sight-reading, and transposing. His professional singing background includes several seasons with the Cincinnati Vocal Arts Ensemble as well as serving as music director for the Our Lady of Divine Providence parish family.
Buzza earned a MM and performance diploma in viola from Yale University where he also led the Yale Russian Chorus, and his Ph.D. in eighteenth-century Italian sacred choral music from the University of Kentucky.