Chorister's Workshop Faculty

Dr. Paul Rardin was most recently Elaine Brown Chair of Choral Music and Chair of the Vocal Arts Department at Temple University, where he conducted the Concert Choir, taught graduate conducting, and oversaw the seven-choir program at Temple’s Boyer College of Music and Dance. He was also Artistic Director of the Mendelssohn Club of Philadelphia. Dr. Rardin previously taught at the University of Michigan and Towson University, where his choirs appeared with the Kirov Orchestra of the Mariinsky Theatre, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, and Baltimore Choral Arts Society. His choirs have performed for NCCO national conferences and ACDA division conferences. In 2015 the Temple University Concert Choir performed with the Philadelphia Orchestra in Bernstein’s MASS under the direction of Yannick Nézet-Séguin, and in 2016 the ensemble performed Bach motets with Helmuth Rilling.

Dr. Rardin has served as a guest conductor for all-state choirs in seventeen states, for divisional honor choirs for the ACDA and Music Educators National Conference, and for Manhattan Concert Productions at Lincoln Center. He has presented clinics for state, regional, and national conferences of the American Choral Directors Association. His engagements for 2017-2018 include guest conducting the California All-State Choir and conducting Vierne’s Messe Solenelle at Washington National Cathedral with Manhattan Concert Productions.

Dr. Rardin is a graduate of Williams College and the University of Michigan, where he received the M.M. in composition and the D.M.A. in conducting. He has studied conducting with Theodore Morrison, Jerry Blackstone, and Gustav Meier, and composition with Leslie Bassett, George Wilson, and Robert Suderburg. He has also participated in conducting master classes with Helmuth Rilling, Charles Bruffy, and Dale Warland. His arrangements of spirituals and folk songs are published by Santa Barbara Music Publishing, and his articles, many on the topic of contemporary music, have appeared in the ACDA publications Choral Journal, Troubadour, Resound, and Bel Canto.

Paul lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife, Sandy.

Dr. Rachel Cornacchio is Associate Professor of Music and Director of Music Education. As a public school educator, she has taught in New York, New Jersey, and Florida in grades K-12. Dr. Cornacchio served as an elementary general music specialist in Peekskill, NY and Director of Choral Activities at Newburgh Free Academy in Newburgh, NY. While in Newburgh, choirs and soloists under Dr. Cornacchio's direction received top honors at solo and ensemble festivals. Community organizations with which she has worked include the Newburgh Symphonic Chorale and the Oregon Young Women's Choir. Before coming to Messiah University, Dr. Cornacchio acted as Visiting Instructor at the University of Oregon where she directed the University Concert Choir and taught courses in Choral Music Education.

Her professional affiliations include the Music Educators National Conference, Pennsylvania Music Educators Association, American Choral Directors Association, and Pi Kappa Lambda. She currently serves as Repertoire & Standards Chair for Women's Choirs for the American Choral Directors Association - PA. Dr. Cornacchio is active as a certified Music Together instructor, an early childhood music program.

Dr. Joy Elizabeth Meade is the Director of Choral Activities and an Assistant Professor of Music at Messiah College, where she conducts Concert Choir, Chamber Singers and Choral Arts Society. These choirs tour nationally and internationally and perform regularly on campus, in the community and collaborate with the Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra. Dr. Meade also teaches undergraduate and graduate choral conducting at Messiah, as well as applied voice. Prior to her recent appointment at Messiah College, Dr. Meade was the Associate Director of Choirs at Georgia State University in Atlanta. There, she was the recipient of the 2018 Center for International and Collaborative Arts grant and also started a permanent collaboration and graduate assistant opportunity between Georgia State's choral department and the Atlanta Homeward Choir. Prior to earning her doctorate in conducting at the University of Georgia with Dr. Daniel Bara, Dr. Meade worked as a public school educator in the Unionville-Chadds Ford School District, teaching choir and orchestra. She earned her masters of music in choral conducting from Westminster Choir College, where she had the opportunity to sing under the batons of the finest maestros in the world. She continues to perform regularly as a professional choral singer and soloist, as well as serve as a clinician and adjudicator at high schools, universities and festivals on the East Coast.