GRAMMY® Award winning conductor Jerry Blackstone is director of Choirs and chair of the Conducting Department at the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance where he conducts the Chamber Choir, teaches conducting at the graduate level, and administers a choral program of eleven choirs. In December 2014, the Naxos recording of Milhaud's monumental L'Orestie d'Eschyle, on which Blackstone served as chorusmaster, was nominated for a 2015 GRAMMY® Award ("Best Opera Recording"). In February 2006, he received two GRAMMY® Awards ("Best Choral Performance" and "Best Classical Album") as chorusmaster for the critically acclaimed Naxos recording of William Bolcom's monumental Songs of Innocence and of Experience. In 2006, the Chamber Choir performed by special invitation at the inaugural convention in San Antonio of the National Collegiate Choral Organization, and in 2003, the Chamber Choir presented three enthusiastically received performances in New York City at the National Convention of the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA). For significant contributions to choral music in the state of Michigan, he received the 2006 Maynard Klein Lifetime Achievement Award from the ACDA-Michigan chapter. Professor Blackstone is considered one of the country's leading conducting teachers, and his students have been first place award winners and finalists in both the graduate and undergraduate divisions of the ACDA's biennial National Choral Conducting Awards competition. Blackstone has appeared as festival guest conductor and workshop presenter in thirty states as well as New Zealand, Australia, Hong Kong, and Shanghai. 2014-15 appearances include festivals and conference presentations in Australia, New Zealand, China, New York, Florida, Illinois, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Utah, and Michigan.