Bio

Alicia W. Walker is Professor of Music and Director of Choral Studies at the University of South Carolina, where she directs the Concert Choir and Garnet Chorale (SSAA) and supervises the graduate conducting program. Dr. Walker has taught continuing education workshops for choral directors in South Africa, and she is frequently invited to conduct and teach in the UK and in Taiwan.  Dr. Walker has conducted at major venues including Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center in New York, Southwark and Canterbury Cathedrals in England, and St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Her choirs have been selected to perform for NCCO (2021, 2023), SCMEA (2016, 2018, 2022), and for South Carolina’s ACDA conference (2018, 2022, 2024). Dr. Walker’s pedagogy and professional interactions are marked by a commitment to excellence, collaboration, and inclusion.

An experienced music educator, Dr. Walker taught at the elementary, middle, and high school levels, followed by appointments at the University of Georgia and the University of South Carolina, where she supervised Secondary Choral Music Education. She is a Past President of Southern Region ACDA (2015-2017) and Georgia ACDA (2009-2011), and she developed ChorTransform, ACDA’s service-learning initiative for student chapters.  She was the Program Chair for the 2024 Southern Region ACDA Conference.  South Carolina ACDA recognized her with the Leadership & Service to the Profession Award in 2024.  

Her focus on professional mentoring led Dr. Walker to found Facets,™ a leadership retreat for women conductors. In Columbia, she conducts a chamber choir of music educators called Limited Time Only, and she maintains an active schedule as a guest conductor, clinician, and adjudicator. A long-time church musician, Dr. Walker served churches in Florida, Kentucky, Georgia, and South Carolina. She was a committee chair for the development of Celebrating Grace, a hymnal published in 2010, and is a contributing author for Sacred Choral Music Repertoire: Insight for Conductors. Dr. Walker was guest editor of the February 2021 Choral Journal, ACDA’s focus issue on pedagogy.  She is the author of “The Holistic Conductor,” an online graduate conducting text; her research interests include conducting pedagogy and choral composers of the English Musical Renaissance.  She is a Life Member of ACDA and holds memberships in NAfME and NCCO.