John Hollins

John Singleton Hollins is a native of South Carolina and has appeared on national and international stages and in liturgical settings as a conductor, pianist, organist, cembalist, composer, clinician, and professional baritone. His teaching has inspired numerous students who now contribute actively to the musical and academic life of communities across the globe. He has performed at both divisional and national conventions of the American Choral Directors Association, and served as a Repertoire and Standards Chair for ACDA’s Southern Division. Having served as Interim Director of Choral Studies (2008-2009) and the conductor and course instructor of every choral ensemble of Texas Tech University (a total of seven ensembles, excluding opera choruses) since coming to Lubbock in 2002, Dr. Hollins currently serves as Associate Director of Choral Studies, designing and guiding a four-semester sequence of studies in choral literature for graduate students, teaching undergraduate conducting, guiding independent studies in hymnology and liturgy, maintaining a studio of applied organists, and engaging in independent studies for graduate projects.

In October 2025, Dr. Hollins was inducted into the Steinway & Sons (New York and Hamburg) Teacher Hall of Fame at its historic New York factory, having been honored by Steinway in 2024 for his contributions to piano pedagogy and to pianism in the liturgical arts via Spirio|r technology. He has performed extensively in eastern Germany, including Berlin, Thale, Burg Falkenstein, Wust, Vieritz, Jerichow, Quedlinburg, Halberstadt, Dresden, and Leipzig. He also appeared in concert with coloratura-soprano Kathy McNeil and tenor Oliver Lucero in Prague, Czech Republic. In 2013 Hollins was one of only four international artists invited to teach and perform for the inaugural festival of the International Center for Collaboration in the Musical Arts in Johannesburg and Pretoria, South Africa. He has served as a faculty vocal coach for Music in the Marché, an intensive summer vocal performance program held annually in Mondavio, Italy. Dr. Hollins conducted the West Texas Symphony Orchestra for Standing Ovation: a Homecoming, a Midland Opera gala featuring world-renowned Grammy Award-winning mezzo-soprano Susan Graham. He has appeared numerous times as a guest conductor of the Lubbock Symphony Orchestra.

From 2002 until 2020, Dr. Hollins served The Lubbock Chorale, the oldest civic choral organization in the South Plains. As Artistic Director, he fervently worked for promoting a higher sense of organizational effectiveness; growing corporate sponsorship and season donors; developing a vitally active scholarship program with new endowments; organizing community outreach promotional appearances and presentations; nurturing collaboration with other organizations in the South Plains, such as Lubbock Symphony Orchestra, Lubbock Moonlight Musicals, Ballet Lubbock, the West Texas Children's Chorus, area school districts, the Louise Hopkins Underwood Center for the Arts, The Helen Jones Foundation, The CH Foundation, the Lubbock Inc. Cultural Arts Grant Program, and Lubbock Music Clubs; mounting an international tour to Europe and supporting two nationally prestigious performances in New York's Carnegie and Alice Tully Halls; facilitating newly commissioned works by cutting-edge composers; and welcoming numerous guest conductors and clinicians.

Dr. Hollins formerly served as Music Director and Conductor of the TTU Graduate Opera Project and as a conductor and vocal coach for the TTU Music Theatre program. Productions under his baton at Texas Tech included Susannah (Floyd), The Turn of the Screw (Britten), Suor Angelica (Puccini), Iolanthe (Sullivan), Candide (Bernstein), Orpheus in the Underworld (Offenbach), Le Nozze di Figaro (Mozart), Orfeo (Gluck), I Capuleti e i Montecchi (Bellini), Un Ballo in Maschera (Verdi), Carmen (Bizet), and a world-premiere version of The Last Leaf (Remson). Hollins has also artistically shaped TTU productions of The Bartered Bride, La Traviata, Die Zauberflöte, Too Many Sopranos, West Side Story, The Ballad of Baby Doe, La Clemenza di Tito, Gianni Schicchi, and Il Barbiere di Siviglia. For Lubbock Moonlight Musicals, he also conducted professional productions of Les Misérables, Cats, Mary Poppins, and Peter Pan, each featuring nationally and internationally renowned artists.

From 2002 to 2017 Dr. Hollins also served as a conductor, répétiteur, and pianist for Cedar Rapids (Iowa) Opera Theatre. As Music Director for the CROT Young Artist Program, he conducted productions of The Mikado (2004 and 2014), H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance, Into the Woods, The Gondoliers, Man of La Mancha, South Pacific, and Speed Dating Tonight. As pianist-coach for main-stage productions he has collaborated on productions of Le Nozze di Figaro, Carmen (2005 and 2014), Susannah, L'Elisir d'Amore, Aida, Salome, Tosca, The Merry Widow, La Bohème, Don Giovanni, La Traviata, Cavalleria Rusticana, and I Pagliacci. Dr. Hollins was a faculty lecturer and keyboard artist for the Summer Choral Institute of St. John's College-Cambridge University (United Kingdom) and Texas Tech University, and was also the Co-Director of Music and organist for the Triennial Oxbridge Symposium of the C.S. Lewis Institute. These engagements afforded opportunities to perform in London, Cambridge, Oxford, and Ely.

Dr. Hollins has collaborated with some of the world's finest artists, including singers Allan Glassman, Kathryn Goeldner, Hector Vasquez, and Marilyn Mims—who have enjoyed leading roles at the Metropolitan Opera—and Arianna Zuckerman, Hope Briggs, Malcolm McKenzie, Cynthia Clayton, and Drew Slatton—who have enjoyed national and international opera and concert careers; stage directors Ed Bourgois, Gregory Keller, and Bill Fabris; and conductors/coaches David Hill, Jon Spong, and Daniel Kleinknecht. Other collaborative keyboard credits include numerous professional, collegiate, and festival choruses and orchestras, including the City of Oxford Orchestra (United Kingdom), Coro Favoriti, the Choral Arts Society of Louisville, the Lubbock Symphony Orchestra, the Louisville Orchestra, the Kentucky Opera Chorus, and the Columbia Philharmonic Chorus.

Dr. Hollins's research and creative activities have included the study of major sacred choral works by American composer Dan Locklair, the positive synthesis and the creative intersection of vocal and conducting pedagogy, and the direction of musical and cultural seminars in Middle Germany, based in the historic city of Quedlinburg, providing students the opportunity to study and perform in Sachsen-Anhalt, Sachsen, and Thüringen. A strong advocate of music education and outreach, Dr. Hollins was the Associate Artistic Director of Voices of Kentuckiana, a GALA-affiliated community chorus in Louisville, Kentucky, and a music consultant for the Kentucky Opera Association, where he worked closely with the educational program "Music! Words! Opera!"— in which students created, composed, produced, and performed their own original operas.

An active church musician (lifelong, professionally for 40 years), Dr. Hollins has served as Minister of Music/Organist/Pianist at St. Paul's-on-the-Plains Episcopal Church in Lubbock since 2006, having formerly served Presbyterian, Baptist, and Methodist parishes in Kentucky and South Carolina. Dr. Hollins holds the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Choral Conducting, Piano Performance, and Musicology, and the Master of Church Music degree in Organ and Piano from Southern Seminary. He holds the Bachelor of Music degree in Piano Pedagogy from the University of South Carolina. His mentors include Bessie Cheros, Anne Guest, Luella Gibson, Max Camp, and Maurice Hinson (piano); Larry Wyatt and John Dickson (choral); Don Hustad, Paul Richardson, and Hugh McElrath (liturgy and hymnology); and Stephen Spoon, Ronald Boud, and Boyd Jones (organ).