Conversations with Dr. Vicki Burrichter

Today we’d like to introduce you to Dr. Vicki Burrichter.

Hi Dr. Burrichter, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
My favorite early picture is of me in my high chair on a big pillow, and my mom in her country music outfit and guitar singing to me. I have been a performer most of my life in nightclubs, musical theater, and churches. I came to Colorado to study jazz at UNC and became interested in conducting. I spent several years watching Marin Alsop conduct the Colorado Symphony and working with her privately, then I was lucky enough to sing with Robert Shaw at Carnegie Hall – Britten’s “War Requiem.” My path was set – conducting combined everything I loved into one exciting package!

I have always been entrepreneurial and interested in social justice issues, which led me to produce “Sing for the Cure,” an oratorio for breast cancer., in 2005. We recruited 175 singers from across Colorado, and with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra accompanying us, we showed pictures of local survivors and those who had left during the performance at Boettcher Hall. It was a powerful night! I approached the great choreographer Cleo Parker Robinson about collaborating with jazz artists Geri Allen, Carmen Lundy, and Robert Glasper, for Mary Lou Williams’ “Mary Lou’s Mass: A Jazz Mass for Peace, also at the DCPA. A social worker I knew asked me to give lessons to one of her foster girls, which led to me founding and running the “SOAR! Youth and Adult Choir” for five years, where foster and adopted children sing with, and are mentored by, adult choral singers.

Since 2015, I have been Artistic Director of the Boulder Chorale’s Concert Chorale and Chamber Chorale. Besides the standard Western oratorios for the chorus and orchestra of Bach, Mozart, and Brahams, we do innovative diversity programs not usually done by Western choirs; for example, Arabic and Hindustani music, as well as Brazilian, Cuban, and myriad others. We had a fabulous time touring Duke Ellington’s “Sacred Concerts,” to the Netherlands, with guests Adam Waite, Joslyn Ford-Keel, David Sharpe (tap dancer!), and three Grammy-nominated musicians.

On the last weekend of April 2024, the Boulder Chorale and I are looking forward to having the Uvalde, Texas High School “Los Coyotes” Mariachi Band (recently featured in a beautiful Rolling Stone article) perform with us and with and our oldest children’s choir, Bel Canto. As Leonard Bernstein famously said, “This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before.” I hope you will join us! www.boulderchorale.org

This year, I was invited to conduct at Carnegie Hall, so on June 8, 2025, I’ll be leading the choir and orchestra in Jennifer Higdon’s gorgeous “The Singing Rooms.” Please contact me if you would like to participate! vicki@boulderchorale.org.

We all face challenges, but looking back, would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Every struggle I’ve had has been important to the development of who I am as a conductor and a human being. We can all say that, right? As a woman in the field of conducting, it has not always been easy. Though it is gradually changing due to people like my former mentor Marin Alsop, women represent only 3% of all orchestral conductors, for example. Marin once advised me to “make your projects – no one will give you anything,” and she was right.

I have also learned to follow my vision and instincts and to do what I know makes me unique. I know that my diversity programming has been creating new paths for several decades. One of the advantages of growing older is that I listen to that inner voice more than any other voice around me. That has led to success.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.boulderchorale.org
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-vicki-burrichter-101b1094/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtxN647DETYtpth-8tzFFO9TwfL09OneZ

Image Credits
Ethan Hecht, Eugene Yen, and Vicki Burrichter