Matthew and Shelly Armstrong enjoy singing, leading choirs, and composing/arranging. Matthew is the Director of Choral Activities and Shelly is staff accompanist at Wayne State College. They have been privileged to teach music at all age levels from K-12 through college, guiding school ensembles to appearances at regional and national conferences of the American Choral Directors Association. Throughout their 15-year public school teaching career, they had the distinction of leading choirs to perfect contest ballots in concert, chamber, madrigal, jazz, and show choir categories. Additionally, jazz choirs under their direction were three-time winners of the 4A large school Iowa Vocal Jazz Championships.

The Armstrongs enjoy remaining active conducting honor choirs. In 2022, they were honored to lead the Nebraska Choral Directors Association All State Concert Choir at Peru State College. In addition to other regional festivals, they have directed the Nebraska Ambassadors of Music European Tour led by Bob Rogers Travel since 2023.

As composers and arrangers, works in their catalog have been performed by honor and all state choirs and published through E.C. Schirmer’s MorningStar and Galaxy divisions, Santa Barbara Music, MusicSpoke, Peck Music Group, and SMP Press, in addition to featured “editors’ choice” selections with JW Pepper.

As singers, the Armstrongs have made recordings ranging from country to pop and jazz in Chicago, Branson, and Nashville with producers including Peter Eldridge, Danny Crawford, Gail Lennon and Monty Allen. They also remain active as demo singers for new choral works and honor choirs. In 2022, they recorded Dr. Matthew Haakenson’s Par80’s Mass.

At Wayne State, Matthew directs four choirs, teaches conducting and music education courses, and serves as the faculty advisor for the student NAfME Chapter. Shelly serves as staff accompanist and enjoys playing for choirs, student juries and recitals, faculty recitals, and monthly outreach concerts in the community’s senior living facilities. She also frequently collaborates with Dr. Angela Miller-Niles as the piano duo Deux Femmes Pianistes, which performs duo piano music by women composers.

Matthew earned a BME and Shelly a BME/MT (music therapy) from Wartburg College, where they met singing in the internationally acclaimed Wartburg Choir. Matthew and Shelly hold MME degrees from VanderCook College of Music and the University of Northern Iowa, respectively. The Armstrong family relocated to Nebraska in 2014 where Matthew earned a DMA in Choral Conducting from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. They enjoy spending time with their children, Gabriel and Norah, also avid music-makers.