Maxine Thévenot - Founding & Artistic Director 

"Thévenot's direction invariably shapes the music with illuminating and often profound effect, sculpting each phrase with intelligence and understanding." - Albuquerque Journal

The versatile, engaging, and spirited Canadian-American conductor, organist, and educator Maxine Thévenot is driven by a passion for vocal music in all its forms and styles and is equally at home with repertoire from the classical canon and more contemporary compositions. A frequent champion of the music of our own time, she has conducted regional, national, and world premieres of works, including those by Judith Bingham, Abbie Betinis, Jake Runestad, Ola Gjeilo, Judith Weir, Cecilia McDowall, Arvo Pärt, Tarik O’ Regan, James MacMillan, Joby Talbot, Philip Moore, Andrew Carter, Stephanie Martin, Andrew Ager, Falko Steinbach, Levi Brown, Sarah Quartel, Jenny Olivia Johnson, Zachary Wadsworth, David Hurd, and Gabriel Jackson.  

Thévenot is acknowledged as one who brings singers of all ages and abilities to artful performance through an understanding of the music and its context in the world around them. Her passionate artistry, combined with a pioneering desire to educate, unites music, art, and community and has led to her resurrecting and mounting large-scale choral works, including Thomas Tallis’ Spem in Alium, and creating the intergenerational, 45-minute performance project, A Children’s Messiah by G. F. Handel, now in its 9th season. 

Through her work with so many wonderfully imaginative and creative children, adults, and professional musicians, Maxine has demonstrated that the power of music combined with the goals of education, highlighting the values of diversity and social responsibility, can build up our society. One such event raised over $10,000 in a benefit concert for local charity Barrett House.

In New Mexico, she has led the New Mexico Philharmonic, Chatter orchestra, Friends of Cathedral Music orchestra, and the PVNM orchestra in fresh and inspired interpretations of major choral-orchestral works, including Bach’s St. John’s Passion, Handel's Messiah, James MacMillan’s setting of Miserere, Seven Last Words from the Cross, and Cantos Sagrados; Henry Mollicone’s Beatitude Mass: Mass for the Homeless, the Requiem settings by Cherubini, Fauré, and Duruflé, and Enrique Granados' Canto de las Estrellas with pianist and Granados scholar Douglas Riva. 

As chorus master, Dr. Thévenot frequently collaborates with New Mexico’s finest orchestras, offering moving and dynamic interpretations of standard large-scale choral repertoire. She has prepared choirs for the New Mexico Philharmonic Orchestra (Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem, Beethoven Ninth Symphony, Holiday Pops); All-Star Orchestra (Beethoven Ninth Symphony, and the world premiere of the Opera, Zozobra: The Revenge); The Figueroa Project (Bach Magnificat); and Santa Fe Pro Musica (Haydn Creation, Mozart's Requiem in d minor), for conductors Dante Anzolini, Grant Cooper, Joe Illick, Guillermo Figueroa, and Thomas O’Connor.

Internationally, Maxine has led choirs in concerts and liturgical services in prestigious venues, including Canterbury Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, and St. Paul’s Cathedral, London; Washington National Cathedral; and the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, NYC. Her career as a concert organist has allowed her to perform throughout North America, Austria, France, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, and the UK.

Dr. Thévenot will make her Carnegie Hall début on June 21, 2026, conducting a chorus of 150 singers from across North America and the 55-member New England Symphonic Ensemble.

Thévenot received her Doctor of Musical Arts and Master of Music degrees in organ performance from the renowned Manhattan School of Music, NYC, and was twice awarded the Bronson Ragan Award for "most outstanding organ performance." While at MSM she was the founding director of Concentus women’s choir. She earned her Bachelor of Music in Music Education (with distinction) at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada. Maxine is an Associate of the Royal Canadian College of Organists and of the Royal Conservatory of Music, Toronto. She was made an Honorary Fellow of the National College of Music, London, UK, in 2006 for her "services to music."

Recordings of choirs conducted by Maxine Thévenot alongside her solo organ recordings may be heard on the RavenCD label. www.maxinethevenot.com