FARMINGTON – The Western Maine Choral Society has welcomed two conductors: Bruce McInnes and Paul McGovern.

McInnes will conduct the University of Maine at Farmington Community Chorus in the fall (concerts on Dec. 2 and 3) in a program featuring works by Poulenc, Bach and holiday carols. McGovern will conduct the choir, with orchestra, in the spring (concerts on May 5 and 6) in a performance featuring music by Bach, Handel and Vivaldi.

McInnes directs the Mastersingers USA, a men’s chorus of alumni from Amherst College, Yale, Pacific University and the University of Wisconsin Eau Claire, as well as from his choirs at Grace Church in New York.

McInnes has also conducted choirs at Harvard, Sarah Lawrence, Rutgers and Columbia. He was a Fulbright Scholar at the Université de Paris where he studied with Nadia Boulanger, Olivier Messiaen, Pierre Cochereau and Darius Milhaud.

He holds an undergraduate degree from Dartmouth College and completed his graduate studies at Yale School of Music. He has been a professor at Amherst, Pacific, Wisconsin and Sarah Lawrence, and more recently served as dean of the conservatory at the Cleveland Institute of Music.

McGovern is assistant professor of music and choir director at Saint Joseph’s College in Standish. He has also taught and directed choirs at the Crane School of Music at SUNY-Potsdam and Georgia Southern University.

McGovern received his undergraduate degree from Queens College/CUNY and his master’s and doctoral degrees from Indiana University. He serves as music director of the Granite State Choral Society, a non-auditioned community chorus based in Rochester, N.H., and as chorus master for the Portland Opera Repertory Theatre.

Previously, he directed Voces Novae, an auditioned chamber choir in Bloomington, Ind., and the Greater South Jersey Chorus. Before graduate school, McGovern taught music for six years in public schools in the Philadelphia, Pa., area.

Rehearsals are held from 6:30 to 9 p.m. Mondays in Nordica Auditorium, Merrill Hall, UMF. There is a $30 fee to participate and the choir is open to community members, faculty and students.

No audition is required; attend the first rehearsal on Sept. 11. There will be no auditioned choirs during the 2006-2007 season. For more information, check out the Western Maine Choral Society Web page at music.umf.maine.edu.