Karl Geiger, Director of Music

Karl Geiger is a pianist, organist and conductor who relishes creating music with others. As a young musician, he was drawn to one of the first collaborative activities he was exposed to—choral music—and hasn’t looked back since.

Moving from chorister to accompanist to conductor was a natural progression. With this complementary set of skills, he often wears several hats, moving with ease between the podium and the keyboard. As a choral accompanist, Karl’s principal long-term roles include the First Concert Choir of Young Adelaide Voices (2010–2016) and the choirs of the Elder Conservatorium of Music, in particular the Elder Conservatorium Chorale (since 2011).

He was the inaugural winner of the Diana Harris Prize for Accompanying, and the winner of the 2010 Geoffrey Parsons Award for Accompaniment. Karl was Organ Scholar at St Peter’s Cathedral for two years, and has had extensive experience as a collaborative pianist and orchestral continuo player.

Karl first studied conducting under Carl Crossin OAM at the Elder Conservatorium of Music. He participated in the Gondwana National Choral School conductor’s development program and has conducted in masterclasses with the King’s Singers, Stephen Cleobury (Choir of King’s College, Cambridge), and Stephen Layton (Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge).

Karl’s principal role as a choral conductor has been as Director of Music of Graduate Singers since 2012. In this time, Karl has enjoyed conducting the choir’s annual subscription concerts, as well as numerous other engagements, highlights of which include chorus-mastering for the 2015 Doctor Who Symphonic Spectacular, and for the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra’s Harry Potter in Concert series.

In 2017, Karl was thrilled to be part of Graduate Singers’ 40th anniversary celebrations, which included recording and producing the choir’s first commercially available CD, Jubilate in Musica.