Chancel Choir Director
Michael Pohlenz

Dr. Michael Pohlenz was Director of Music at Wellshire Presbyterian Church in Denver for over 14 years, concluding on Christmas Eve in 2017. He has previous experience at First Presbyterian Church and East Heights United Methodist Church in Wichita, KS, and 25 years as founding Music Director and Conductor of the Wichita Chamber Chorale. The Chorale was honored to perform at the 1996 Joan of Arc Festival in Orléans, France, and the 1988 Southwest Region and 1989 National Convention of the American Choral Directors Association.

Other significant performances included Bach’s Magnificat, B Minor Mass and St. John Passion, Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem, Duruflé’s Requiem Mass, Handel’s Dixit Dominus, Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass and Mass in Time of War, Rutter’s Magnificat and Requiem, Rachmaninoff’s All-Night Vigil, the Western United States premiere of Gretchaninoff’s All-Night Vigil, and the Kansas premiere of Arvo Pärt’s Berliner Messe. The Wichita Eagle critic wrote that the Wichita Chamber Chorale . . . routinely responds with a professionalism that’s unrivaled locally. In 2013, the Chorale honored Michael by granting him the title of Music Director and Conductor Emeritus on the occasion of their 35^th Anniversary Concert. In 2019, Michael founded Voces Cordis, an auditioned adult community choir that has performed two concerts at Bethany Lutheran Church in 2019 and 2022, and also sung in Bethany’s worship services on those concert days.

In 2000, Dr. Pohlenz was Guest Conductor of the Bethany College Messiah Festival in Lindsborg, KS, conducting performances of Handel’s Messiah and Bach’s St. Matthew Passion with a 225-voice choir and orchestra. In the Denver community, he was Richard Larson’s Assistant Conductor of Kantorei for 8 years, Associate Conductor of Jonathan Brown’s Canto Dei for 2 years, and a Performing Member of Howard Skinner’s professional Summer Choralfest Choir for 5 years. He has also sung with the Colorado Bach Ensemble and St. Martin’s Chamber Choir in Denver, taught choral music and voice at the college level, and vocal and instrumental music at the high school level.

Michael holds the BME degree cum laude from Friends University in Wichita, KS, the MM degree in choral conducting summa cum laude from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, TX, and the DMA degree in choral conducting magna cum laude from the University of Oklahoma in Norman, OK, with additional study at the University of Southern California. In his continuing study of choral music, he sang and studied conducting with Helmuth Rilling at the Oregon Bach Festival in 1974, sang in three Robert Shaw Choral Workshops at Carnegie Hall in 1994, 1996 and 1998, and attended the René Clausen Choral School at Concordia College in 2007 and 2009.