Camtastic Newsletter September 2026

Faculty Portrait: SoM Professor Dr. Emerson Eads

By Mark Stoffel

It was all meant to be different. When Emerson Eads graduated from high school, he was set to become a lawyer.

“I knew it, because it was during the time when the OJ Simpson trial took place,” he said.

But young Eads was also interested in music, and when his high school music teacher invited him up to do warm-ups for the choir, his life’s goal took somewhat of a different turn.

“We were working on Messiah at the time. I got up there and when the sopranos came in, just the sound that everyone was making with my involvement of just winging my arms around was just super magical,” he said. “It turned out that this was part of my DNA. This is who I am”.

An Alaskan native, he enrolled at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks with a major in vocal performance.

“I really thought I was going to be singing and I thought opera might be the route that I would take. But one day, I was booked to do a concert, and I had some minor cold issues and wasn't able to function at a high level,” he said. “I just then realized how absolutely at the mercy of the gods the voice is. I always loved singing in choirs and conducting choirs, I even inaugurated the Fairbanks Symphony Chorus, so I dove headlong into choral conducting in a doctoral program at Notre Dame”.

With a doctorate in hand, Eads became a professor at Minot State University in North Dakota, where he earned tenure. While working at this relatively small teacher’s college, he found himself multi-tasking so intensely that he felt his creative potential severely stifled: “It was starting to take time away from my composing life. If I have time, that's what I do”.

So he applied at the SIU School of Music, with the University’s R1 status as one of the major selling points.

“Composing is really important to me, so at SIU there would be more time in the schedule to devote to research, writing and composing,” he said. “In Minot I was teaching at a school of 2,500 students. This would be 12,000, so there seemed to be much more potential for growth”.

The day of his interview and audition at SIU, and after meeting most of the SoM faculty members, Eads called his wife and told her “‘I think this is the place.’ I just had a really good feeling about it,” he said.

And not too long after that he received the call that he had been hired.

Eads leads two choir projects at the School of Music: Choral Union and Concert Choir. The SIU Choral Union is a ‘town-and-gown group’, made up of community members, students, and staff.

“There are excellent musicians, sight-readers, and some bigger trained voices in Choral Union,” he said. “You learn pretty quickly in that wave of sound. Concert Choir is more student based where we explore more varied repertoire from different eras and genres. Concert Choir is auditioned at the beginning of the semester, and Choral Union is not. If you've never ever sung before, but have always wanted to, the group for you is Choral Union.”

Eads hopes others enjoy the singing arts as much as he does.

“For me, singing is such a safe place, a place like no other,” he said. “One day, Ricky Spears [SoM Professor and Director of Athletic Bands] invited me to teach the Alma Mater to the members of the Marching Salukis — 150 kids! There were very few actual singers in the room and most of them identified with their instruments. But within half an hour, they were just booming! I mean, it sounded fantastic and it was such an emotional experience for me, because singing is for everyone!”

Eads is a happy camper at the SIU College of Arts and Media and the CAM is a happier place with Eads. He loves teaching while being able to dig deep into his original compositions.

“One of the cool things we're doing will be to perform my piece “Mass for the Oppressed” at Carnegie Hall in New York City,” he said. “The piece was composed to raise awareness and public support for the “Fairbanks Four” — four indigenous men from Eads’ hometown of Fairbanks, Alaska, who were wrongfully imprisoned for 18 years.

About thirty members of Choral Union and Concert Choir from SIU are signed up to participate in this performance in June of 2027. I am really excited about that!”

The deadline to sign up for that event is October, and Eads welcomes newcomers. “We need more singers!” he said.

If you can take a hint and have serious intentions, don’t hesitate to contact Dr. Emerson Eads (emerson.eads@siu.edu). You are wanted!