Dawn Willis is the Artistic Director and Founder of Bella Voce Women’s Chorus. Under her leadership Bella Voce has performed throughout the region, recorded five CDs and toured Ireland, Austria, Italy, Germany and the Czech Republic.

Dawn is also the Artistic Director for the Solaris Vocal Ensemble, a new mixed choir based in Burlington. Dawn is the choir director at First Baptist Church in Burlington and she has also served as the Chorus Director for the Green Mountain Opera Festival.

Dawn holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Choral Music from Arizona State University and Masters degrees in Sacred Music and Choral Conducting from Southern Methodist University. In 1999, she conducted the New England Symphonic Ensemble and the McMurry University Choirs in a performance of Mozart’s Solemn Vespers at Carnegie Hall. She has also served as a guest conductor for the Southeast Iowa Symphony Orchestra and prepared choruses for regional orchestras in Iowa and Texas. Dr. Willis has served as the Director of Choral Activities at McMurry University and Iowa Wesleyan College, and has conducted the University of Vermont Catamount Singers and Arizona State University Women's Chorus. She has conducted numerous festivals, clinics, and workshops throughout Texas, Georgia, Arizona, Iowa, South Dakota, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Vermont. She has served as the choral director for churches in several denominations and directed numerous collegiate and community musicals, operas, and madrigal dinners. Dawn also composes and arranges sacred and secular choral music and pieces for handbell ensembles.