Dr. Maritza Cáceres, for the past 30 years, has been conducting symphonic, community, church, children, and women choirs in the USA, New Zealand and in her native country, Chile. She is the Music director and conductor of Fort Worth Kantorei, and the co-founder of the Music Association of Auckland Chorale in Auckland, New Zealand. She has prepared choirs for the Fort Worth Symphony and the Auckland Philarmonia Orchestra for their symphonic performances of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, Leonard Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms, Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, and Brahms' German Requiem. She has also prepared choirs for semi-stage opera productions of Leoncavallo’s I Pagliacci and Mozart’s The Magic Flute.
She holds a Doctorate of Musical Art in Conducting from Texas Christian University and a Master’s degree in Choral Conducting from Westminster Choir College in Princeton, New Jersey. Her teachers have been Dr. Dennis Shrock, Ron Shirey, Helmut Rilling, Dr. Joseph Flummerfelt, and Dr. Eph Ehly. As a charter at Westminster Choir College, Dr. Cáceres sang under the direction of renowned conductors such as Riccardo Muti, Zubin Mehta, Robert Shaw, and Kurt Masur, and performed at the Spoleto Festival in Charleston, South Carolina and the Festival die Due Mondi in Spoleto, Italy.
Dr. Cáceres has served on the Board of Directors and as a Director of Chamber Music for the Fort Worth Youth Orchestra. She was a finalist and second place winner of the Graduate Student conducting competition at the American Choral Directors Association in 1995. She has a been guest conductor and clinician for the Junior High School Music Festival of the Texas Adventist Union in North Dallas and has given conducting master classes in Santiago, Chile, in Lima and Ñaña, Peru, and in Osaka University, Japan. She was a music faculty member of Southwestern Adventist University in Keene, Texas for the past eight years.
Dr. Caceres is an active church musician and educator. Currently she is the organist at Ridglea Presbyterian Church and piano accompanist for many choirs and school programs in the Metroplex area. Dr. Caceres is currently on the faculty of The Conducting Institute in Fort Worth Texas.