Robert Shafer

Robert Shafer is one of the mostly highly regarded choral conductors in the United States. He was a student of the celebrated Nadia Boulanger at the Conservatoire Americain in Paris, and while there won the first prize in composition in 1969. By then he had become a high school teacher. His work at James Madison High School in Virginia attracted national attention, especially for his founding and leading a first-rate madrigal group. He remained on its faculty from 1968 to 1975. In 1972, he became music director of the Washington Chorus, a leading choral ensemble of the U.S. ca...