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The Indian-American conductor, organist, composer and music teacher, Joshua Anand Slater, obtained his Bachelor of Arts degree in Music - Historical Performance with Distinction in the Major and Minor in Art History from the Boston University College of Arts and Sciences (September 1996-May 1999); and his Master of Music degree in Conducting from the Boston University College of Fine Arts (2001-2003). He also attednded the Conductors Institute at Bard College (2005); and the Conductor's Workshop (2007) at Rose City International (2006).
Joshua Slater has served as Assistant Conductor of the The Stonehill College Chapel Choir (January 2000-January 2001); Assistant Conductor of Boston University Marsh (January 1998-January 2002); Music Director at Sparhawk School (2004-2007); Founder and Music Director of Fujit - The Chamber Choir (2009); Music Teacher at Boston Archdiocesan Choir School (January 2001-August 2013); Music Director at Church Of Our Saviour (August 2007-September 2013); Music Director at Christ Church Cathedral in Hartford, Connecticut (September 2013-February 2016); Assistant Director of Music at Trinity Wall Street in New York City (January 2016-March 2018); Director of Music - Classical at St. Paul's Bloor Street in Toronto, Ontario, Canada (October 2021-February 2024).
Joshua Slater known equally for his work in new music and for “rich, full-throated” interpretations of established repertoire. Equally at home in the concert hall and the theater, his most recent opera credits in the 2024 season include the Toronto Premiere of the Pulitzer Prize winning Angel’s Bone and jumping in to lead the piano vocal workshop for Des Moines Metro Opera’s world premiere of American Apollo.
A long-term advocate for other visible minority artists, and a believer in the value of learning and participation in classical music and the choral tradition for visible minority communities, Joshua Slater regularly leads Loose Tea Music Theatre’s BIPOC Composer-Librettist Development Program. He is the Founding Artistic Director of fujit productions (founded 2009), a concert organisation committed to promoting underrepresented and silenced voices.
Part of the leadership team for Trinity Wall Street’s “indispensable and unmissable” classical concert series (The New York Times) - as programmer, manager, and conductor - Joshua Slater co-produced the recording of the Pulitzer-winning opera Angel’s Bone, along with the Grammy-nominated recording of Glass’s Symphony No. 5. He has expanded, reformed, and founded community choir and chorister programs in Connecticut, New York and Boston. He has served on the faculties of St. Paul's Choir School, Cambridge, Massachusetts and The Sparhawk School, Amesbury, Massachusetts.
A Colleague of the American Guild of Organists, Joshua Slater revitalised and relaunched the music program at St. Paul’s Bloor Street, the largest Anglican church in Canada, after its lengthy pandemic-era closure.
Joshua Slater is an active orchestrator and arranger for numerous contemporary American composers, and has revised and orchestrated works for composers associated with G. Schirmer, ECS, Beth Morrison Projects and numerous others. An active scholar and writer, he served as Trinity’s principal program annotator, and has been commissioned by the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Washington Chorus. Samples of his work are available at Program Notes from the Edge (Wordpress), and the New York Times certainly enjoyed his synopsis of George Frideric Handel's Jephtha. |
