Dr. Rebecca Nederhiser is a passionate conductor, music educator, scholar, and oboist. She conducts the Wartburg Community Symphony (WCS), leads the Kammerstreicher string ensemble, and teaches music theory, form and analysis, oboe, and conducting at Wartburg College. Her vision has led to formation of the St. George String Quartet and Hagen Legacy of Music Endowed Scholarship, as well as collaborations/clinics with national artists, including Neave Trio, Reena Esmail, Jocelyn Hagen, and Gao Hong. In May 2007, she will travel with Kammerstreicher on an international tour to Germany, Luxembourg, Belgium, and France.
Nederhiser has created memorable WCS concert hall experiences through engaging programming, pre-concert talks, art displays, visual projections, and community initiatives. In 2025-26, interviews with Iowa legacy farm owners preceded performances of Copland’s The Tender Land opera; images honoring the late Gary Kelley illustrated Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9; and the two-time Grammy-nominated Neave Trio performed the Iowa premier of Robert Paterson’s Triple Concerto. Nederhiser earned third place in the 2023 American Prize competition for the Vytautas Marijosius Memorial Award in Orchestral Programming, recognizing a WCS concert that included the groundbreaking commission and premier of Jocelyn Hagen’s Messages From Everywhere in collaboration with the Wartburg Choir. She is a finalist for the 2026 American Prize in two categories, Orchestral Programming and Conducting.
An active scholar, Nederhiser has presented her research nationally and internationally. In 2024, she traveled to Vienna to celebrate Arnold Schoenberg’s 150th anniversary and conduct research at the Arnold Schoenberg Center. In 2024, she investigated the unpublished manuscripts of composer and conductor Avril Coleridge-Taylor at the Royal College of Music in London. She has presented at successive International Conductors Guild Conferences, discussing “Trailblazers: Exploring British Women in Music” at the Royal College of Music in London (2025) and “Copland’s The Tender Land: An Iowa Tribute,” in Dallas, Texas (2026), which included her work with Iowa legacy farm owners.
Additionally, Nederhiser maintains an active schedule as an oboist, clinician, and adjudicator performing with the Winona Symphony and Waterloo Cedar Falls Symphony and guest conducting with orchestras throughout the United States. This November, Nederhiser will serve as the Illinois District IV Senior Festival Orchestra conductor, a qualifying event for the Illinois All-State and Honors Orchestra. As a champion of contemporary music, Nederhiser continues to research, commission and premier several works for orchestra each year.
After completing a music education degree from Warner Pacific University, Nederhiser earned master’s degrees from Washington State University (oboe performance) and Central Washington University (orchestral conducting) and a DMA (orchestral conducting) from University of Nebraska-Lincoln. In her spare time, she enjoys hiking, reading, cooking, traveling, and exploring her local coffee shops.
Nederhiser has created memorable WCS concert hall experiences through engaging programming, pre-concert talks, art displays, visual projections, and community initiatives. In 2025-26, interviews with Iowa legacy farm owners preceded performances of Copland’s The Tender Land opera; images honoring the late Gary Kelley illustrated Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9; and the two-time Grammy-nominated Neave Trio performed the Iowa premier of Robert Paterson’s Triple Concerto. Nederhiser earned third place in the 2023 American Prize competition for the Vytautas Marijosius Memorial Award in Orchestral Programming, recognizing a WCS concert that included the groundbreaking commission and premier of Jocelyn Hagen’s Messages From Everywhere in collaboration with the Wartburg Choir. She is a finalist for the 2026 American Prize in two categories, Orchestral Programming and Conducting.
An active scholar, Nederhiser has presented her research nationally and internationally. In 2024, she traveled to Vienna to celebrate Arnold Schoenberg’s 150th anniversary and conduct research at the Arnold Schoenberg Center. In 2024, she investigated the unpublished manuscripts of composer and conductor Avril Coleridge-Taylor at the Royal College of Music in London. She has presented at successive International Conductors Guild Conferences, discussing “Trailblazers: Exploring British Women in Music” at the Royal College of Music in London (2025) and “Copland’s The Tender Land: An Iowa Tribute,” in Dallas, Texas (2026), which included her work with Iowa legacy farm owners.
Additionally, Nederhiser maintains an active schedule as an oboist, clinician, and adjudicator performing with the Winona Symphony and Waterloo Cedar Falls Symphony and guest conducting with orchestras throughout the United States. This November, Nederhiser will serve as the Illinois District IV Senior Festival Orchestra conductor, a qualifying event for the Illinois All-State and Honors Orchestra. As a champion of contemporary music, Nederhiser continues to research, commission and premier several works for orchestra each year.
After completing a music education degree from Warner Pacific University, Nederhiser earned master’s degrees from Washington State University (oboe performance) and Central Washington University (orchestral conducting) and a DMA (orchestral conducting) from University of Nebraska-Lincoln. In her spare time, she enjoys hiking, reading, cooking, traveling, and exploring her local coffee shops.
