Growing up in Oak Park, Illinois, Madeleine Woodworth studied piano with Dr. Sally Sloane and organ with Dr. Dennis Northway, and she participated in church choirs directed by Dr. Northway. She currently serves as the Director of Music at Grace Episcopal Church in Oak Park and enjoys her role as staff accompanist at the Merit School of Music. She pursues her passion for small choral ensembles by singing in the William Ferris Chorale and in La Caccina, a nine-voice professional treble ensemble. In her current work, she values the representation of minority and living composers and authors.

Madeleine earned her Bachelor of Music in Organ Performance at the Eastman School of Music under the tutelage of Nathan Laube. During her time there, she won first prize in the American Guild of Organists’ Regional Competition for Young Organists (Great Lakes Chapter) and the Westchester Organ Competition. Her interest in new music led her to collaborate with Wilhelmina Esary, to premiere a new piece for the organ called “On Track” as part of the AGO’s Student Commissioning Project. Madeleine participated in Eastman’s student government and was inducted into the music fraternity, Sigma Alpha Iota.

Along with her church choir background, her involvement in choirs at Eastman led her to pursue her Master of Music in Choral Conducting at the Yale School of Music and Yale Institute of Sacred Music where she studied with Marguerite Brooks, Dr. Jeffrey Douma, and David Hill. Upon graduation, she was awarded the Robert Shaw Prize for excellence in conducting and the Richard Paul DeLong Prize in church music. Her favorite international professional experiences include the Yale Schola Cantorum’s tour to Scandinavia, the Yale study exchange with Zurich University of the Arts in Switzerland, and the Lisbon Choral Conducting Masterclass in Portugal. Most recently, she was a featured performer in the North Shore American Guild of Organists Regional Convention and enjoyed singing with Nova Era Vocal Ensemble (Lisbon-based) in summer 2023.