Bio

Peter Kadeli is a conductor whose passion for choral and sacred music spans academic, liturgical, and performance settings. He serves as Head of Sacred Music and Director of Choral Activities at The Catholic University of America and is Associate Conductor of the two-time Grammy Award–winning The Washington Chorus. In 2025, he earned second place in the American Prize in Choral Conducting (University Division). Kadeli previously held appointments as visiting Director of Choral Activities at Hope College and as a liturgical music director in the Catholic Dioceses of Indianapolis, Arlington, and Lansing.

Current engagements with the Catholic University Chamber Choir include the closing Mass of the Society for Catholic Liturgy’s national conference; Bach’s St. Matthew Passion with the Baltimore Basilica Schola Cantorum and Three Notch’d Road under the direction of Samuel Rowe; and Duruflé’s Requiem with The Choral Arts Society of Washington and Marie Bucoy-Calavan at Carnegie Hall. He has conducted the Indiana University Oratorio Chorus, Conductors Orchestra, NOTUS, Opera Chorus, and Singing Hoosiers, as well as the University of Michigan University Choir and Orpheus Singers. He led NOTUS in Reena Esmail’s Tuttarana at the American Choral Directors Association 2023 Midwestern Conference and has assisted in preparing choruses for conductors including Gianandrea Noseda, Jonathan Heyward, Eugene Rogers, Thomas Wilkins, Kenneth Kiesler, Arthur Fagen, Marzio Conti, and Louis Lohraseb.

An avid interpreter of contemporary music, Kadeli has recorded selected choral works of Sir James MacMillan with the Catholic University Chamber Choir for the Welcoming Children in Worship project and premiered Timothy Dusenbury’s Requiem for a Warrior in 2023, later broadcast by South Carolina Public Radio. At Indiana University, he led multiple orchestral premieres, including the first recording of Kian Ravaei’s Feeling New Strength. Kadeli’s own compositions include Veni Sancte Spiritus, premiered in Prague and Salzburg, and Beyond the Starlit Skies, published by Kandinsky Music and featured on Pittsburgh’s WQED-FM Classical Music 2023 promotional CD.

Committed to community engagement through music, Kadeli founded the Vivaldi Gloria Project to support Indianapolis residents in need, uniting musicians from across the city in a benefit concert. He co-founded the Bishop O’Connell Youth Music Festival and the Arlington Diocesan Honors Music Festival, expanding access to high-quality musical opportunities for young musicians, and currently serves as an adjudicator and choral clinician for educational and religious institutions.

Kadeli holds a Doctor of Music in Choral Conducting, with a minor in music history and literature, from Indiana University; a Master of Music in Choral Conducting from the University of Michigan; and Bachelor of Music degrees in Composition and Choral Music Education from George Mason University. He is grateful for the mentorship of Eugene Rogers, Dominick DiOrio, Betsy Burleigh, Walter Huff, Lisa Billingham, and Stan Engebretson.