C. Paul Heins

C. Paul Heins is the associate conductor for the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, DC. Since joining the artistic team in 2014, Dr. Heins’s primary responsibility has been the creation and direction of the GenOUT Chorus, the DC area’s first-ever choral ensemble for LGBTQ+ and allied youth, ages 13-18. An outreach ensemble of GMCW, GenOUT operates under the two-fold mission to give LGBTQ+ and allied youth a voice, and to connect that voice to community. Since the first GenOUT rehearsal in January 2015, more than 60 youth have participated in the chorus, which performs at every mainstage GMCW concert, in addition to presenting its own annual Youth Invasion concert and more than a dozen community performances each season. GenOUT also hosts an annual summer camp, a program which includes music-making, dancing, creative writing, panels and speakers on LGBTQ+ history and issues, and field trips. Over the past four years, the GenOUT Chorus has performed at the Kennedy Center, White House, National Cathedral, and the 2016 GALA Choruses Festival. The 2017-18 GenOUT Chorus had 26 members representing 17 schools in DC, Maryland, and Virginia.

Heins was previously the director of the Concert Choir at Georgetown University, where he also taught music theory, piano, and introduction to voice, and served as music director for the university’s opera and musical theater productions. He is also the past director of the Lesbian & Gay Chorus of Washington, and is a frequent guest pianist, flutist, and conductor in the DC area. He trained in piano and flute at Bowling Green State University (B.Mus.), flute at the University of Maryland (M.Mus.), and choral conducting at the University of Maryland (D.M.A.), where his doctoral research focused on Lukas Foss’s 1942 oratorio The Prairie.