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It’s been quite a year for Morgan Luttig, who received her Master of Music Education just a few weeks ago and will head to a teaching position at Washington and Lee University in the fall.

Luttig became acquainted with the Westminster sound through the Spoleto Festival USA.   “For years my family and I attended the Westminster Choir concerts at the Festival,” she says. “It was through these performances that I discovered my love of the Westminster choral sound, and knew that I wanted to be part of the Westminster community in some way.”

�±���ٳ����Բ��ٱ��’s  program offered her the perfect opportunity to achieve that goal.  Designed for licensed music educators who want to improve music teaching and student learning, the program can be completed part-time through online classes and summer study or over two academic years with some summer study. Having earned a bachelor’s degree in Vocal Performance with K-12 Vocal and Instrumental Teaching Certification from Washington and Lee University, Luttig taught in Savannah, Ga. for three years. 

“The music education and choral faculty at Westminster were willing to work around my schedule as a full-time choral director and general music teacher,” she says.  “They worked with me to design a curriculum timeline for the Master of Music Education: Choral Emphasis program so that I could finish my third year of teaching while starting my coursework online. Then, I completed my degree in Princeton full-time over the past year. Westminster was unique in its willingness to work with me individually to shape my degree program around my timeline.”

Reflecting on her year at the Choir College, she says, “There are so many highlights from my time at Westminster. Particularly memorable moments include performing Holst’s The Planets with a small group of Symphonic Choir women, performing with Westminster Kantorei at the ACDA Eastern Division Conference, acting as a teaching assistant for the Westminster Jubilee Singers and mentoring sophomores through their first teaching experiences at John Witherspoon Middle School as part of my graduate assistantship. The opportunities provided for students at Westminster are truly remarkable.”

This fall she’ll return to Washington and Lee, her undergrad alma mater, where she’ll be a visiting instructor of music, acting as a sabbatical replacement for the director of choral activities in the 2018-2019 academic year. She’ll direct three collegiate choral ensembles, including a men’s choir, a women’s choir, and a co-ed ensemble that will tour Scotland in the spring.

“Many of my Westminster experiences helped prepare me for this position,” she says.  “In particular, I am grateful for the opportunity to conduct Master Singers, learning from feedback from my professor and peers. In addition, the choral conducting courses and music education courses challenged me as a musician and educator in ways that will enable me to benefit my future students. The opportunity to perform with the Westminster choral ensembles, surrounded by such talented singers and overall musicians, showed me the excellence I will strive for within my own choral ensembles.”

She also plans to apply to doctoral programs. “I hope someday to be director of choral activities at a university while also directing a children’s community choral ensemble, “ she says.  “One of my goals is to find not only the connection between, but also to encourage the collaboration of children’s choirs and collegiate choirs. I believe that so much can be gained by an interaction between these two elements of the choral world.”