Joseph Caulkins
Throughout his career, Maestro Joseph Caulkins has been taking music to audiences in new and unexpected ways. For his debut season with Key Chorale in 2007, he led the chorale in Campra's rarely heard Requiem, Charles Ives' The Celestial Country and a luminous setting of Elgar's Nimrod variation set to the text of Lux Aeterna. The 2008-2009 concert season was highlighted by a dramatic performance of Richard Einhorn’s dynamic oratorio, Voices of Light, written to accompany Carl Dreyer’s 1928 silent film classic, “The Passion of Joan of Arc” at the Sarasota Opera House—a collaboration with the Sarasota Opera and the Sarasota Film Society.
In addition to Key Chorale, Mr. Caulkins is also Associate Conductor and Director of Choruses with the Southwest Florida Symphony. During his eight seasons with the symphony in Fort Myers, Mr. Caulkins founded the Stained Glass Series, led semi-staged opera productions with students of the Juillard School, directed the Children's Chorus at the Children in Harmony Choral Festival in Disney World, and released two chorus CDs.
Last summer, July 2009, Mr. Caulkins was proud to combine the forces of his Key Chorale and the Southwest Florida Symphony to present American choral classics during the 2009 European Tour through France and Italy.
Highlights of Mr. Caulkins performances include Charles Ives’s The Celestial Country, and a luminous setting of the text of Lux Aeterna to Edward Elgar’s Nimrod variation from the Enigma Variations. He has also conducted semi-staged opera productions as well as several ballets, including Elite Syncopations by Joseph MacMillan and the 2006 performances of Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana with the Sarasota Ballet, Key Chorale and the Southwest Florida Symphony. Comfortable with music from Classics to Pops, Mr. Caulkins has led concerts with various orchestras and has conducted for pop artists Ralna English and Kenny Rogers.
Prior to coming to Florida, he conducted the Bach Chamber Choir and Orchestra in Rockford, Illinois and the St. Procopius Chamber Orchestra and Choirs at Benedictine University in Lisle, Illinois. He was twice selected to participate in conducting master classes with Helmuth Rilling at the prestigious Oregon Bach Festival.
In his free time, Maestro Caulkins becomes Mountain Joe as he trades his baton for an ice pick and climbs the mountains of the world. When not dangling precariously from a high ledge, he chooses the tranquility of listening to classic jazz.
