Artistic Leadership

Photo credit: Andrew Schwartz — Veritography LLC

Music Director Steve N. Lewis, Jr. has enjoyed a diverse musical career as both a conductor and French hornist. Steve is the Music Director of the Medical Arts Symphony of Kansas City and the Midwest Chamber Ensemble. Under his direction the Midwest Chamber Ensemble won Third Place in the American Prize. Lewis has collaborated with such guest artists as pianists Charl Louw, Mary Rose Norell, and Keith Kirchoff, French hornist Brett Hodge, soprano Sarah Tannehill Anderson and countertenor Jay Carter. He has conducted the Kansas City Metro Opera, the Missouri Symphony, OvreArts (PA), the Philharmonia of Greater Kansas City, the Wilson Symphony (NC), the University of Central Missouri Orchestra, the Emporia State University Chamber Orchestra, and the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory Orchestra and Chamber Orchestra.

As a French hornist Steve has performed at the Stamford International Music Festival (UK) and the Brevard Music Center (NC), as well as concerts with the Mahlerfest Orchestra (CO) and the Missouri Symphony. 

Steve teaches musicianship and music business as a faculty member of the Institute of Audio Engineering Arts. Previously he taught at the Salvation Army's A-OK Conservatory of Music where he conducted Brass Band, Men's Chorus, and taught music theory. From 2012-2013 Lewis served as conducting fellow of the Kansas City Youth Symphony where he led many rehearsals and coached the brass section. He also has a growing private studio of horn students.

Steve attended high school at the North Carolina School of the Arts where he studied French horn with David Jolley. Steve holds degrees from East Carolina University (BM, Theory/Composition) where he studied French horn with Mary Burroughs and the University of Missouri- Kansas City Conservatory of Music and Dance (MM, Orchestral Conducting) where he studied conducting with Robert Olson and French horn with Ellen Campbell and Martin Hackleman. He was twice awarded the EAMA/Florence Gould Foundation Michael Iovenko Fellowship to study conducting in Paris as part of the European American Musical Alliance at the historic Schola Cantorum. While there Lewis received special mention in both solfege and counterpoint. Steve has attended the South Carolina Conductors Institute and the International Conductors Institute workshops in Round Rock Texas and New York. He has received career and continuing education grants from the ELCA Central States Synod, Anna Sosenko Trust, and the Koch Cultural Trust. His many arrangements for French horn and other ensembles are published by Cimarron Music.


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Chamber Music Coordinator Kathryn Hilger recently graduated from the Cleveland Institute of Music where she earned her Master’s in Viola Performance, studying with Stanley Konopka. Kathryn earned her Bachelor’s in Viola Performance from the University of Missouri-Kansas City with Scott Lee in 2018.

Kathryn serves as Principal Viola and Chamber Music Coordinator for Midwest Chamber Ensemble. She is also involved with Classical Revolution Kansas City and works for Meyer Music both as a string repair technician and a violin and viola teacher. 

Previously Kathryn has served as the principal violist for the CIM Opera Orchestra, the Medical Arts Symphony and the National Symphony Orchestra Summer Music Institute. She was a member of the National Repertory Orchestra in Summer 2017. While living in Cleveland, Kathryn was an active participant in Classical Revolution Cleveland as well as a substitute violist for the Firelands Symphony Orchestra and a viola teacher at the Cleveland School for the Arts.

When not practicing, Kathryn enjoys running, yoga, watching The Office, vegan cooking, tending to her houseplants and obsessing over her dog. 

Kathryn will be taking over as Artistic Director for the 2023–24 season.


Photo credit: Andrew Schwartz — Veritography LLC

Musicologist-in-Residence Sara McClure is a Chancellor’s Fellow and Ph.D. candidate in musicology at the University of Kansas. Her dissertation on concert life in 19th-century St. Louis is also supported by the Jim Martin Graduate Travel Award from the KU Hall Center for the Humanities. In 2017 she completed a Master of Music in musicology at the University of Missouri-Kansas City with a thesis on the choral works of Francis Poulenc. She presents pre-concert conversations prior to most performances of the Midwest Chamber Ensemble and during the 2020-21 concert season also served as video producer of livestreamed concerts. She also directs the annual ChoralFest (canceled in 2020 and 2021), where singers from various churches and choirs gather for a week of rehearsals to sing a major work with the Midwest Chamber Ensemble. Previous works performed include Rutter’s Requiem, Corigliano’s Fern Hill, Mozart’s Coronation Mass, and Brahms’s Liebeslieder Waltzes.

Sara serves as the Music Director at Prairie Baptist Church in Prairie Village, KS, where she has conducted the Chancel Choir, Handbell Choir, the “Used-to-Play” Band, and led worship since 2012.  Sara has worked with such renowned conductors as Daniel Bara, Joseph Flummerfelt, William Weinert, Anton Armstrong, Simon Carrington, and Robert Bode. She earned a Master of Music in choral conducting from East Carolina University, and a Bachelor of Arts in music and history from the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, VA.

Originally from the Philadelphia, PA, suburbs, Sara previously taught music history and directed the West Campus Choir at Montgomery County Community College in Blue Bell, PA. She is a member of the American Choral Directors Association, the American Musicological Society, the Society of American Music, and the American Brahms Society.