Heather Mitchell serves as Associate Conductor and Director of Operations for the Mendelssohn Chorus of Philadelphia. She is also currently the Artistic Director of the Hopewell Valley Chorus, the Assistant Director of Choral Activities at The College of New Jersey, and the conductor of the Montclair Community Choir. As a choral singer, she has performed with many professional and notable groups that include The Bach Choir of Bethlehem, Manhattan Chorale, Coro, Tucson Chamber Artists, and the Tucson Symphony Orchestra. With a focus on unknown repertoire, Heather founded the professional choir FIVE LINES bring attention to works by major composers that have been overlooked. In the spirit of FIVE LINES, she made her Carnegie Hall debut conducting the vastly unfamiliar Schumann Requiem, Op. 148 with the Masterwork Festival Chorus and the New York City Chamber Orchestra. She was the author of “A Reconsideration of the Performance of the Chorales in J.S. Bach’s Passio secundum Johannem, BWV 245,” a featured article in the American Choral Directors Association’s Choral Journal, that defines the proper performance practice of Bach’s chorales. In 2006, she earned the Emerging Conductor Award from the Minnesota Chorale and has been sought out as a guest lecturer, clinician, and judge for collegiate programs and choral festivals like the Arizona Music Educators Association, All-American Music Festival, and OrlandoFest. Her teaching spans children’s, collegiate, community, and professional choirs. Heather holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in choral and orchestral conducting from the University of Arizona and a Master of Music degree in choral conducting from Saint Cloud State University, in Minnesota. Outside of music, she is a professional photographer in the NYC metro area, an avid hiker, and tries to bake everything.