HANIF LAWRENCE
CHORUS DIRECTOR

Hanif Lawrence is a Jamaican-born music educator, conductor, arranger, and tenor vocalist. Hanif’s love of choral music has taken him through numerous classrooms and across many stages where he has prepared ensembles, performed as a soloist, conducted, and toured with choirs in Europe, the Caribbean, and the United States.

Along with serving as the Interim Choral Director with the Pioneer Valley Symphony, Hanif is the Assistant Director of Choral Activities and Lecturer in Music at Smith College, a prestigious, liberal arts institution in Northampton, MA. He is also an active clinician and guest conductor having conducted clinics with the Hampshire Young People’s Chorus, Amherst College Concert Choir, the Suffield Middle School choruses and the Mississippi American Choral Directors Association (MSACDA) Conference Chorus where he was a featured conductor for the 2024 summer conference.

Along with his work on the podium, Lawrence performs with the Illumine Vocal Arts Ensemble, Tiny Glass Tavern, PanOpera, and Novi Cantori, and has been featured as a guest soloist with the Pioneer Valley Capella and numerous other ensembles around the valley.

Hanif holds a Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance from Alcorn State University and a Master of Music in Choral Conducting from the University of Southern Mississippi. During his tenure at Southern Miss, Hanif presented at the Mississippi ACDA 2022 Summer Conference in Oxford, MS
where he delivered his presentation, “From Score to Stage: The Performance Practice Considerations for African American Spirituals” to music educators from across the state. Lawrence intends to engage in doctoral studies where he can unearth, perform, and publish the music of Jamaican
composers to help preserve the artform, while making authentic Caribbean music more readily available to wider audiences.