Biography

Dr. Linda R. Moorhouse serves as Professor of Music and the Director of the School of Music at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She contributes to the campus community through her roles with the University Senate, the University Senates Conference, the Athletic Board, and the University of Illinois System-wide Sexual Misconduct Prevention and Response Council. Before her current role, she served for eight years as the School’s Associate Director and Director of Undergraduate Studies, and prior to that, she led the University Bands program within the School of Music. She was also a 2020-21 Fellow in the Big Ten Academic Alliance Academic Leadership Program.

Before joining the University of Illinois School of Music in fall 2010, Moorhouse served on the faculty at Louisiana State University for more than 20 years, where she was the recipient of LSU School of Music and several campus-wide awards for teaching excellence. At LSU she taught conducting, conducted the Symphonic Winds, and served as drill designer, choreographer, co-director and teacher of record of the LSU Tiger Marching Band, one of a select few award-winning college marching bands in the country. Under her leadership, the LSU Tiger Band received the Sudler Trophy (the “Heisman trophy” of college marching bands), and won the 2008 ESPN/Paramount Pictures “Battle of the Bands” contest. She also managed the LSU Summer Music Camps.

Moorhouse is active as a conductor, clinician, and adjudicator both nationally and internationally and her service to the band profession is a matter of record. Concert ensembles under her direction at two different Research I universities have been featured at national and regional conferences of the College Band Directors National Association, the North American Saxophone Alliance International Conference, and the American Bandmasters Association National Convention.  She is a Past President of the prestigious American Bandmasters Association, and is a past President and former Executive Secretary of the National Band Association, the largest professional organization for bands. She is also a past President of the Women Band Directors International, where she is a recipient of the organization’s Silver Baton and International Golden Rose awards for outstanding leadership and service to the music profession. Honored as a Member Laureate (member of international distinction) of Sigma Alpha Iota, professional fraternity for women in music, Moorhouse is also a recipient of the Diploma of the Sudler Order of Merit from the John Philip Sousa Foundation in recognition of extraordinary service to the music community. The National Band Association has recognized her contributions to the music profession on numerous occasions with the NBA Citation of Excellence, the Distinguished Service Award, and election to the Academy of Wind and Percussion Arts (AWAPA), considered the “Oscar” of the band world. She is the 72nd inductee of this honored academy of prominent musicians and educators. Moorhouse is a recipient of the Paula Crider Outstanding Band Director Award from Tau Beta Sigma, national band service sorority, and is also a member of the VIP community within the Division of Education at Conn-Selmer, Inc., and she is recognized in Grove Music Online.

In addition to her conducting and teaching accolades, Moorhouse has several publication credits including research contributions to multiple volumes of both the Composer’s Insight–Thoughts, Analysis and Commentary on Contemporary Masterpieces for Wind Band (Meredith Music) series and the Teaching Music Through Performance in Band (GIA) series, along with other Meredith Music publications.

International engagements include serving as a conductor on multiple western European tours with the United States Collegiate Wind Band, serving as an adjudicator on two jury panels for the World Music Contest in Kerkrade, Netherlands, and serving as a speaker for the International Round Table Conference as part of the 2017 World Music Contest. She also appeared as a conducting clinician and conductor with Portugal’s Wind Ensemble of Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa, has adjudicated Singapore’s National Youth Music Festival on multiple occasions, and has worked as a clinician and adjudicator in Western Australia.

Moorhouse earned a Doctor of Musical Arts in Instrumental Conducting from the University of Washington in Seattle, where she studied with Peter Erös and Timothy Salzman. She holds a Master of Music Education degree from Louisiana State University, and a Bachelor of Music Education with Honors from the University of Florida, where she is a member of the University of Florida Bands Hall of Fame.