Biography
Hailed by Mason Bates as “a fine citizen musician,” Collin Whitfield is an accomplished composer, pianist, and organist based in Michigan. He has been the recipient of the James Highsmith Award for new orchestral music, first prize in the American Choral Directors Association Choral Composition Competition through Central Michigan University, and first prize in the Biennial Art Song Composition Competition at the San Francisco Conservatory. His music has been praised by librettist Nicholas Giardini as "beautiful, rapturous and unabashedly romantic, without any of the failings that so often accompany these qualities."
Collin Whitfield is an active recitalist and frequently collaborates with his wife, soprano Erin Whitfield. He was recognized in the May 2021 issue of The Diapason as one of the 20 leaders under the age of 30 (20 Under 30 Class of 2021) for his technical achievements and creativity in organ and church music. He was awarded the 2017-18 Tacoma American Guild of Organists Scholarship and the 2020 Kent S. Dennis Memorial Scholarship.
Collin Whitfield has a substantial background as a pianist and an accompanist. He has worked with the California Bach Society, Chora Nova, Berkeley Community Chorus and Orchestra, Saginaw Choral Society, and with noted conductors Vance George and Ragnar Bohlin. Currently, he accompanies for the Midland Center Stage Chorale at the Midland Center for the Arts.
Collin Whitfield is the Director of Music and the Arts at First Presbyterian Church of Flint, where he serves as organist and choirmaster, and oversees creative programming for music, visual arts, dance, and drama ministries. Previously, he served as Director of Music Ministries at First Presbyterian Church of Saginaw and Second Presbyterian Church of Saginaw, and Director of Music and Organist at Mason United Methodist Church in Tacoma, Washington. He is a former Dean of the Saginaw Valley Chapter of the American Guild of Organists.
Collin holds a Master of Music in organ performance from Central Michigan University, where he studied with Steven Egler. He received his Bachelor of Music in composition from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where he studied with Mason Bates and David Conte, and was awarded departmental honors in music theory. He is indebted to Paul Tegels, with whom he studied in Tacoma, Washington, for his foundational teaching in organ.
