Gary Seighman is Professor of Music, Director of Choral Activities, and Chair of the Music Department at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, one of the nation’s top liberal arts universities. His commitment to the choral craft has earned him the 2023 TCDA Innovative Concert Programming Award and the inaugural Guy H. Ranson Memorial Award for excellence in teaching, research, and service from the Trinity University School of Arts and Humanities. A highly active contributor to the field, he frequently shares his work through conference sessions, articles in the Choral Journal, and appearances as a guest speaker for podcasts and other public forums.

Seighman’s pedagogical approach is rooted in a career that spans the full choral spectrum, from K–12 general music to high school, collegiate, and community ensembles, as well as both volunteer and professional church choirs. At Trinity, he also oversees the choral music education program and finds constant inspiration from his students. Representing over thirty different academic majors, the members of his ensembles epitomize the liberal arts experience, combining high-level artistry with a diverse love of learning that spans the sciences, business, and humanities.

Under Seighman’s leadership, Trinity’s ensembles have earned invitations to perform for SWACDA, NCCO, and TMEA. His global engagements include eight tours of East Asia, where he has conducted for the Peking University Summer Opera Program and led masterclasses across Taiwan and Japan. In Europe, he has served as artist-in-residence at University College Dublin and as chorusmaster for the Classical Music Festival in Eisenstadt and Vienna. Following his Carnegie Hall debut conducting Mozart’s Requiem, he continues to lead national honor choirs through WorldStrides and other organizations. He recently toured the U.K. and France with the Trinity Chamber Singers, featuring a performance at La Madeleine and a live broadcast Evensong from Winchester Cathedral. Closer to home, he had the honor to conduct the 2026 Texas Private School All-State Choir.

As an advocate for the arts, Seighman is a regular panelist and grant evaluator for the Texas Commission on the Arts and previously served on the board of the DC/MD Choral Directors Association. During his time as a Public Humanities Faculty Fellow, he collaborated with the Scobee Planetarium as guest speaker for their sold-out program, Music Inspired by the Northern Lights. Geared toward school-aged children, the project sought to inspire young people to explore the intersections of music and science. At the College Music Society National Conference, he debuted an innovative work for choir and electronics that merged NASA Kepler Mission data with traditional Coahuiltecan melodies. Performed alongside musicians from the Tāp Pīlam Nation, the project resulted in an invitation from tribal elders to participate in a pre-dawn ceremony on their sacred burial grounds.

He holds degrees from Westminster Choir College, the University of Oklahoma, and the University of Maryland, having studied under James Jordan, Andrew Megill, Dennis Shrock, James Ross, and Edward Maclary. He also spent three years singing in the Westminster Choir under Joseph Flummerfelt.

Always eager to explore new creative outlets, Seighman is also a signed model and actor with Avant Agency. His work has been featured in print, billboards, radio, and television, where he is slowly cornering the market on scruffy, middle-aged men in plaid workwear pretending to install drywall or riding roller coasters for theme park commercials. In his crazy amount of spare time (don’t we all have plenty of that as choir directors?!), he coaches soccer, softball, and baseball for his school-aged children, Gabrielle and Justin.