C.M. Shearer

C. M. Shearer, Professor Emeritus and retired Director of Choral Activities at Kent State University distinguished himself as a conductor, composer, teacher, and clinician.  As a composer, Shearer has written several hundred published choral compositions as well as commissions from the Texas Choral Directors Association, the Texas University Interscholastic League, North Carolina Music Educators Association, and the American Guild of Organists.  He is co-author of Sight-Singing Part Exercises, a supplementary volume of The Jenson Sight-Singing Course, published by Jenson Publications.  In addition, Shearer’s compositions are frequently used as sight-reading material at choral competitions in several states.  For the past two decades, he has composed the Ohio Music Educators Association high-school choral sight-reading contest music.  Shearer has conducted numerous choral festivals, all-state choirs, and workshops on the regional, state, and national levels.  His bachelor’s and master’s degrees are from The University of North Texas and his Doctor of Musical Arts degree is from the University of Colorado at Boulder.  In addition to his twenty-two years at Kent State University, Shearer served as Chorus Master for the Corpus Christi Symphony, Opera Omaha, and Opera Cleveland.  He was also Director of Choral Activities at Del Mar College (Corpus Christi, Texas) and the University of Nebraska at Omaha.  His public-school experience consisted of teaching secondary choral music for eight years in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas, and for more than twenty years he served as a part-time church musician at Methodist, Presbyterian, and Episcopalian churches.