Dr. Barbara Lamont, Associate Professor and Director of Choral Activities at Southeast Missouri State University. Dr. Lamont directs all choral ensembles and teaches choral music education classes and conducting. She has a passion for conducting, teaching, and exploring the choral art with young singers and has served as adjudicator, clinician, and honor choir conductor in Missouri, New York, Ohio, and Texas. Dr. Lamont has also presented sessions on yoga for choir directors and their singers and on demystifying the choral rehearsal for singers. She has served as a resource chair for the Missouri Choral Directors Association as well as a pianist for honor choirs and sessions at the MCDA summer conferences. Additionally, she is a very active collaborative pianist to faculty and students at Southeast as well as guest artists.

Prior to graduate studies, Dr. Lamont was the vocal music director at Northeastern High School and South Vienna Middle School in Springfield, Ohio, where she directed the choirs and musicals as well as taught general music. During this time she was also the accompanist and assistant conductor of the Capital University Choral Union under Dr. Lynda Hasseler and was involved in community theatre.

An Ohio native, Dr. Lamont is a summa cum laude graduate of Capital University in Columbus, Ohio, with a Bachelor of Music in vocal music education. While at Capital, she was a section leader and choral assistant in the Chapel Choir and accompanied extensively in the Conservatory.

Dr. Lamont received her Master of Music degree in choral conducting from Michigan State University, studying with David Rayl, Sandra Snow, and Jonathan Reed. While at MSU, she was a graduate assistant for the Women’s Glee Club and Choral Union and assisted the Women’s Chamber Ensemble and University Chorale. She accompanied voice majors, studio classes, and choral ensembles and was the interim director of a high school women’s community choir in the community music school.
She received her Doctor of Musical Arts degree in choral conducting at Texas Tech University in May of 2016, studying with Rick Bjella and John Hollins. While at Texas Tech, Lamont served as graduate assistant for the Women’s Chorale, Matador Singers, and University Choir and was instructor of record for undergraduate choral conducting. She also accompanied singers and choirs in the School of Music and was a Choral Scholar at St. John’s UMC, Lubbock. Her lecture recital and document explored the work of a contemporary Irish composer, Rhona Clarke.

Dr. Lamont is a charter member of mirabai, a professional women’s ensemble in residence at Michigan State University. She is also featured as a collaborative pianist on mirabai’s debut recording, Ecstatic Songs. Mirabai has presented feature concerts at both a Texas Choral Directors Association conference and a Southwest American Choral Directors Association conference and was featured in Dr. Sandra Snow’s presentation at the 2023 national American Choral Directors Association conference. Her essay on Benjamin Britten’s opera “The Little Sweep” appears in the 2017 Cambridge Scholars publication Essays on Benjamin Britten from a Centenary Symposium.

Dr. Lamont is also a 200-hour certified yoga instructor and enjoys exploring the connection between yoga/kinesthesia and choral singing. In her free time, she enjoys reading, walking, and spending time with her wonderful husband Dustin, children Sky and Peyton, and dogs Gus, Elliot, and Bree.