Bruce Phelps, Artistic and Music Director

Bruce Phelps has been Director of Choral Activities at Anoka High School from the Fall of 1976 until 2004. Prior to that he taught five years in Luverne, Minnesota and one year at Wayzata High School. Bruce received his B.A. degree from Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota in 1970 and his Masters degree from Bemidji State University in 1978. Besides his role as choral director at Anoka High School, Bruce was previously the director of music and adult choir director at the Anoka United Methodist Church, was on the music education staff at St. Olaf, where he taught choral methods and choral literature, and founded his own select adult chorus, The Two Rivers Chorale.

Bruce also served for five years as director of the South St. Paul Male Chorus, eight years as director of the 3M Male Chorus, and nine years as Director of Music at Zion Lutheran Church in Anoka. He has been the guest clinician at numerous choral festivals in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Alaska, serves as an adjudicator for contests throughout the state and is the master presenter in the certification process for music adjudicators sponsored by the Minnesota State High School League. Bruce has written a Sight Reading Manual and a Music Mastery Manual that he publishes and has two choral pieces with Kjos Music.

Since 1976, Anoka choirs have been very active having performed seven time at MMEA conventions, twice at ACDA conventions, three times at the St. Olaf Choral festival, twice as a solo choir at the Dorian festival at Luther College, twice at the Concordia College Choral Festival, twice at Bemidji State's Chorfest as well as seven other local an college festivals throughout the upper Midwest. Students from Anoka traveled to Austria, Germany, Italy, and Switzerland in the summer of 1996 and just recently returned from a trip to England, Wales, and Ireland where the Anoka Choir won the grand championship at the Gateway International Music Festival in Leicester, England.

Bruce was named Outstanding Music Educator of Minnesota by the National Federation of State High School Associations in 1995 and received the Golden Apple Award from the Ashland Corporation in 1996. And for the year 1999-2000, Bruce also received the Oustanding Music Educator Award from the Minnesota Music Education Association for his outstanding efforts and leadership in the classroom and beyond. Bruce has been a Regional Representative to the Minnesota State High School League, has served as Choral Vice President for MMEA, and been the Northeast Regional Representative for ACDA of Minnesota.

Bruce and his wife Candi have four children two of whom are in music education. Stephanie is teaching music at Westwood Middle School in the Spring Lake Park School District and Tom is choral director at Rockford High School. Tracy, a theatre graduate from the University of Eau Claire, Wisconsin, is working for Gateway Festivals/Tours, a company that takes musical groups on tour both domestically and abroad. Their youngest son, David, attends Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota.

In the summer of 2004, Bruce left teaching and moved to the Moorhead, MN area where he is now the Associate Director of Music Organizations for Concordia College. Bruce's duties include organizing choir tours, managing all logistic aspects of the choirs, and working within the music program to promote and market the Concordia music program.