Faculty and Staff

Praised for the “precision and clarity” of his conducting and hailed for his “enlightened” direction, North Carolina native Christopher Gilliam is a conductor, educator, composer, church musician, and professional singer whose career spans more than two decades in higher education. Since joining the faculty at Wake Forest University in 2020, he has directed the university Chamber Choir (MSC 146), Lyric Concert Choir (MSC 145), and Schola Cantorum (MSC 147) and has taught Introduction to Western Music (MSC 100). His pedagogical approach combines rigorous musical preparation with mentorship, collaboration, and experiential learning. Under his direction, Wake Forest Choirs have performed at major university events, partnered with leading regional arts organizations, and toured throughout the United States, Brazil, Portugal, and Spain, In 2023, the Wake Forest Chamber Choir was named a national finalist for The American Prize in Choral Performance.

Gilliam’s academic career has been distinguished by sustained growth and artistic development within collegiate vocal and choral programs. Before coming to Wake Forest, he held faculty positions at Northwestern State University and Davidson College, where he expanded ensemble participation, developed touring initiatives, secured philanthropic support, produced the recording Heaven Full of Stars, which was distributed nationwide, and led performances at venues including Washington National Cathedral, St. Peter’s Basilica, and Oracle Arena. At Wake Forest, in collaboration with University Advancement and Wake the Arts, he helped secure more than $1.6 million to establish a permanent touring endowment for the University Choirs, creating sustained opportunities for student performance, touring, and intercultural engagement. His academic work is enhanced through service on the board of the North Carolina American Choral Directors Association, for which he co-chairs the Collegiate Choral Festival and has served as Auditions Chair.

As a guest conductor and clinician, Gilliam’s residencies have taken him most recently to Harvard University, Boston University, Marsh Chapel, the University of New Mexico, Millikin University, the University of the Bahamas, and the International Performing Arts Institute in Germany. He is also Director of Music at Highland Presbyterian Church in Winston-Salem, where he oversees an active music ministry.

Since 2015, Gilliam has served as director of the Winston-Salem Symphony Chorus, preparing the ensemble for more than two dozen major choral-orchestral works and conducting several in performance. His repertoire with the chorus includes the Requiems of Verdi, Brahms, and Mozart; Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, “Resurrection”; Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9; Orff’s Carmina Burana; Dan Locklair’s Requiem; Karl Jenkins’s The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace; Craig Hella Johnson’s Considering Matthew Shepard; and Elaine Hagenberg’s Illuminare. In 2026, the Symphony Chorus collaborated for the first time with the Greensboro Symphony in Verdi’s Requiem and with the Piedmont Wind Symphony in James Syler’s Symphony No. 2.

In 2023, he founded Winston-Salem Choral Artists, a professional nonprofit choral ensemble, and has since led them in performances of major works including Bach’s B Minor Mass, James MacMillan’s Seven Last Words from the Cross, and Eric Whitacre’s The Sacred Veil. Under his direction, the ensemble has also appeared by invitation at the North Carolina ACDA Conference in 2025 and the Piccolo Spoleto Festival in Charleston, South Carolina in 2026. Forthcoming projects for Winston-Salem Choral Artists in 26-27 include Margaret Bonds’s Credo, Kodály’s Missa Brevis, Christopher Tin’s The Lost Birds, and Alex Berko’s Sacred Place.

Gilliam’s work as a conductor is informed by extensive experience as a professional ensemble singer. Since 2018, he has performed with the Oregon Bach Festival Chorus and served on the staff of the festival’s Stangeland Family Youth Choral Academy. His additional credits include performances with Bach Charlotte, the Simon Carrington Chamber Singers, and the Minnesota Beethoven Festival Chorale under Dale Warland. He was a featured soloist on the Simon Carrington Chamber Singers’ recording Juxtapositions. Of his solo performances, critics have written, “magnificent,” “a well-modulated voice with a pleasant timbre,” “…commanding baritone,” and “…marvelous, with strikingly rich tone and impeccable diction.”

As a composer and scholar, Gilliam has published choral music with E.C. Schirmer, GIA Publications, Alliance Music, Beckenhorst Press, and Lorenz. He also contributed three biographical essays to Choral Repertoire by Women Composers (GIA Publications, 2025). His commissioning efforts—including projects with Dan Locklair, Dan Forrest, Javier Farias, Thomas LaVoy, and Jennifer Stasack—reflects his commitment to expanding the choral repertoire and exploring music’s connections to contemporary cultural and social concerns. Throughout his teaching and professional work, Gilliam creates ambitious artistic experiences, which foster excellence, belonging, curiosity, and meaningful engagement with the wider world, embodying Wake Forest’s Pro Humanitate mission while integrating the university’s broader strategic framework.

Joanne Inkman received her early music training in piano, viola and theory in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.   She frequently performed in festivals and recitals in Vancouver, receiving an Associate Performer’s Certificate from the Royal Conservatory of Toronto.    After studying at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, she earned a Bachelor of Music and the Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.   At Greensboro, Ms. Inkman was the Adelaide Fortune Holderness Fellow, Teaching Assistant and performed Beethoven’s 4th piano concerto with the UNC-Greensboro Symphony Orchestra.

Ms. Inkman has participated in the Tibor Varga Festival in Sion Switzerland and the Johanneson International Music School in Victoria, British Columbia.    She received an Archie Fund award in 2013, to participate in the GP3 Conference at Cincinnati Conservatory of Music and through another Archie Fund award in 2014, participated in the National Conference on Keyboard and Pedagogy in Chicago, Illinois.  Other awards include three British Columbia Cultural Fund Awards and, as a collaborative pianist, she won the Friends of Chamber Music Competition in Vancouver.  Her teachers include Eleanor Harkness, Bela Nagy, Rebecca Penneys, Robin Wood, Joseph DiPiazza and Clifton Matthews.

Ms. Inkman teaches piano, Class Piano, Music Theory I and II, Basic Music and Reading Skills and Introduction to Western Music at Wake Forest University.   Previous teaching appointments include the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, Lenoir-Rhyne College, Piedmont International University, Greensboro Music Academy, University of North Carolina School of the Arts Summer Session and Chamber Music Institute and she owned her own music studio in Canada.

She has extensive and diverse performance experience in solo, chamber music, musical theater, vocal lieder, opera, choral, orchestral piano music, dance and church music.  As opera accompanist she played for the A. J. Fletcher Opera Institute and was organist/pianist for the Oak Summit United Methodist Church for ten years. For many years, she served as pianist for the Elementary Honors Chorus and Junior High Honors Chorus at the annual MENC Convention. As the pianist for the WFU Concert Choir, she has performed throughout the United States and in Austria, Italy and Ireland.   Her New York debut recital was at Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall in New York, New York in 1991.