Senior Director
Judy Hanson is Senior Director at Uniting Voices Chicago, where she is in her 28th year on staff. She collaborates with the President to shape the organization’s artistic vision and co-conducts its premier ensemble, Voice of Chicago, and the select ensemble Encore. A stage director and choreographer, she created and directs Groove, an ensemble dedicated to advanced movement and performance. In 2006, she received a Jeff Award nomination for Choral Choreography for Uniting Voices Chicago’s original musical Sita Ram. Throughout the organization, Hanson plays a key role in many of Uniting Voices Chicago’s signature events, including Winter Glow, the Black History Concert Series, Get Amp’d, and Paint the Town Red. Her work includes helping to shape artistic vision and large-scale performance experiences through repertoire selection, choreography, staging, and the planning and leadership of organization-wide rehearsals and events.
With more than 40 years of experience working with middle school singers, Hanson is a master teacher and sought-after presenter on adolescent vocal development and middle school choral education. She developed Uniting Voices Chicago’s innovative model for Dimension, an ensemble designed to support singers whose voices are transitioning to the lower register. In 1993, she received the Golden Apple Award for Excellence in Teaching, an honor awarded annually to 10 outstanding Chicago-area educators.
A nationally recognized clinician, adjudicator, and conductor, Hanson has conducted honor choirs and presented workshops across the United States for ACDA conferences, choral festivals, and Illinois Summer Youth Music (ISYM). She has served on the faculty of Show Choir Camps of America for 33 years and has adjudicated numerous national show choir competitions. Her expertise in vocal development, performance, and movement has made her a sought-after presenter for conductors and singers of all ages.
Prior to joining Uniting Voices Chicago, Hanson served as Director of Vocal Music at Eisenhower Junior High School in Darien, Illinois, where she conducted six choirs and produced eight musicals. Under her leadership, the school’s choirs performed at the Illinois ACDA Fall Convention and Walt Disney World Resort. Eisenhower singers were selected for three Chicago productions of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat starring Donny Osmond.
