James Benjamin Kinchen

James Benjamin Kinchen, Jr., native of Jacksonville, Florida, is Professor of Music and Director of Choral Activities at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside. Dr. Kinchen has been a Wisconsin Teaching Fellow and received the university's 2002-2003 Stella Gray Teaching Excellence Award, an award made to two outstanding teachers at the university each year. He was also given the university's 2005-2006 Faculty Distinguished Service Award.

Music Director of the Milwaukee Choristers since 1993, he has conducted the Choristers in concert in Germany, Austria, Poland, the Czech Republic, and in Italy. As a conductor or choral scholar, Dr. Kinchen has also traveled to Germany, Sweden, and Cuba. Dr. Kinchen made his Carnegie Hall debut in April 1998, sharing a Mid-American Productions program with John Rutter, and returned to that stage in March of 2004 to lead a 190-voice choir and orchestra in a performance of the Fauré Requiem, and again in March 2006 to conduct choral/orchestral forces in a performance of the Vivaldi Gloria.

Dr. Kinchen holds membership in several organizations including Music Educators National Conference Chorus America, the National Collegiate Choral Organization, and the American Choral Directors Association, in which he has served in a number of key leadership capacities. He is currently President of Wisconsin Choral Directors Association. He is also an affiliate of the Center for Black Music Research. He is in frequent demand as a choral clinician, guest conductor, and adjudicator, and has been listed in the INTERNATIONAL WHO'S WHO IN MUSIC, PERSONALITIES OF THE SOUTH, and OUTSTANDING YOUNG MEN OF AMERICA.

His degrees are a B.M.E. from Jacksonville University, M.M.E. from Southern Illinois University, and a Ed.D. from the University of North Caroline-Greensboro. Prior to joining the UW-Parkside faculty in 1989, Kinchen taught music and directed choral groups at Stanton High School, Jacksonville; Florida Community College at Jacksonville; Southern Illinois College; Hampton University; and Winston-Salem State University.