Dr. Jonathan Talberg

Dr. Jonathan Talberg serves as Director of Choral, Vocal, and Opera Studies at the Bob Cole Conservatory of Music at California State University, Long Beach, where he is music director of the University and Chamber Choirs, and he oversees one of the finest—and the largest—undergraduate voice programs in the state of California. Ensembles under his baton have toured the United States and the world. He has twice conducted at the Music Educator’s National Conference regional honor choir, at the 2008 ACDA Western Convention, at numerous All-State choir concerts, and in various venues throughout Europe and Asia, including the Sistine Chapel and St. Mark’s Cathedral in Italy, the Karlskirche in Vienna, the Matyas Templom in Budapest, and at the Great Wall of China. In constant demand as a guest conductor, he has worked with all levels of singers—from elementary to professional—throughout the United States and Europe. He has prepared choirs for the Cincinnati Symphony, the Long Beach Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Master Chorale, the Pacific Symphony and the Pasadena Pops. Dr. Talberg is Music Director of First Congregational Church of Los Angeles, where he also serves as director of the Los Angeles Bach Festival, which celebrated its 75th anniversary in 2008.

Prior to his appointment at CSULB in 2000, Dr. Talberg served as Conducting Assistant to the Cincinnati Symphony and the Cincinnati Pops and as principal choral conductor at Arrowbear Music Camp. Before graduate school, he taught high school choir in Orange County and at the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts. A five-year member of the California ACDA board, he holds the position of Youth and Student Activities Chair for California. He is an editor at Pavane Music Publishing, where a choral series is published under his name.

Dr. Talberg earned his BM in Choral Conducting from Chapman University and his MM and DMA in Choral Conducting from the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music. He completed a post-doctoral fellowship, graciously underwritten by the Oliver Family Foundation, with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Pops, and the May Festival Chorus.