Wayne Abercrombie is Professor Emeritus of Music and former Director of Choral Programs, University of Massachusetts/Amherst, where he conducted and taught conducting, worked with the Music Education program, and directed the graduate program in Choral Conducting. He is Founding Conductor of the new Children’s Chorus of Springfield, now in its third season.

Dr. Abercrombie's degrees are from Westminster Choir College, (B.M. in Voice and M.M. in Conducting), and from Indiana University (D. Mus. in Choral Conducting with Highest Honors). He has been Assistant Conductor and/or Chorus Director of the Johnstown (PA), Elkhart (IN) and Springfield (MA) Symphony Orchestra Choruses. He taught and conducted at West Georgia College and Indiana University at South Bend, has taught voice and sung recitals and solos with orchestra, and was a member of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chamber Chorus under Robert Shaw.

Choirs under his direction have appeared at various professional conferences and have toured the Eastern Seaboard and in Europe, and the 2004 tour singing in St. Thomas’ Church, Leipzig, St. Stephen’s in Vienna, and St. Mark’s in Venice. The repertoire comprised music written for those venues.

In summer, 2006, he taught master classes in conducting at the Seventh Taipei International Choral Festival, and is a frequent clinician at professional conferences and for individual choral programs and conductors.

His appearances as guest conductor include festival choruses and orchestras throughout New England, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Missouri and Pennsylvania, as well as the Five College Orchestra, the Springfield (MA) Symphony Orchestra and both of its youth orchestras. His third appearance as conductor of the Massachusetts All-State Chorus was in 2007. He has lectured, conducted clinics, taught in and served as consultant to colleges, high schools and churches, and at conferences of the American Guild of Organists, the Music Educators National Conference (MENC) and the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA). He served on the Executive Boards of the Conductors Guild and the Massachusetts Music Educators Association.

In ACDA, he has served on the state, division and national boards, as President of the Massachusetts chapter and was President of ACDA's Eastern Division 2004-2006, and was named Massachusetts ACDA 2007 Conductor of the Year.

He enjoys the diversity of his six wonderful children, numerous grandchildren and three great-grandchildren, and life in Hadley with his wife, Kayla Werlin.