Keith McCauley

Vice President, Board of Directors

Associate Director

Keith McCauley is a conductor, arranger, tenor, actor, music producer, businessman, volunteer, amateur film-maker, web developer, marketer, graphic artist, father, husband, and more.

McCauley is co-founder, Vice President and Associate Director of Cantus Youth Choirs, a non-profit community choir in the Boise, Idaho area. McCauley co-founded Cantus with his wife, Erika (Artistic Director and President), and Melody Paskett.

McCauley is a published arranger and has been arranging for and directing choirs at Cantus since 2012. He directs Fortis, an all-male contemporary a cappella ensemble (18 members); and co-directs VoiceOver, a mixed contemporary a cappella ensemble (18 members); and Concordia, the largest ensemble, which is a mixed varsity choir performing traditional choral music. With his co-directors at Cantus, McCauley has produced live events and released singles and music videos to regional and global audiences.

In addition to Cantus, McCauley currently serves on the boards of Container and Packaging, a packaging distribution company; a real-estate investment company; and the Idaho Chapter of the American Choral Directors Association (IDACDA).

He formerly served on the boards of PrintTracker, an enterprise print management software company; inkr Printing, a commercial printing company; Hand in Hand Family Mentorship, a nonprofit dedicated to providing a friend for families in need; Distinguished Young Women of Boise Valley, a scholarship pageant program for young women; Treasure Valley Chapter of the National Association of Teachers of Singing (TVNATS); and Geeko Labs, an after-school science, technology, engineering, art, and math (STEAM) lab for kids.

Keith McCauley earned a BA in Marketing Communications with minors in Music Performance and Japanese from Brigham Young University in 2004. He was a few credits short of minors in Dance, English, and Linguistics … but thought that 5 years was long enough for a bachelor’s degree.

He has participated in several community musical events. In April 2017, McCauley was the tenor for Handel’s MESSIAH directed by Luke Lords of BSU’s LDS Institute Choir. In April 2024, McCauley played Thomas in Rob Gardner’s Easter masterpiece, LAMB OF GOD. McCauley has arranged and conducted the music for the annual Patty Duke Awards (Idaho’s high school musical theater qualifying competition for Broadway’s Jimmy Awards) since 2024.

In the winter of 2023, McCauley and Cantus directors mustered a choir of 160 youth singers to sing with Grammy-nominated violinist Jenny Oaks Baker’s JOY TO THE WORLD concert at the Morrison Center. The Christmas season prior to that, Cantus Youth Choirs sang as backup for Gentri. Cantus Youth Choirs has also sung back up for Grammy-nominated signer/songwriter Jim Brickman.

In the spring of 2025, McCauley founded the Cantus Choir & Orchestra, an 80-person adult chorus and 45-person orchestra. Since then McCauley and the Cantus Choir & Orchestra have annually performed Emmy-award-winning and Grammy-nominated Kurt Bestor‘s sacred Easter oratorio, THE REDEEMER, headlining violinist, Jenny Oaks Baker.

McCauley has spent a little time on stage and in front of a camera. He was Lord Montague in Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet; the Prince in a French-language adaptation of Snow White & The Seven Dwarves (oui, he spoke un peu français), Bert Healy in Annie; Snoopy in You’re A Good Man Charlie Brown, the narrator in The Bells of BYU, a short musical-parody that he co-wrote and starred in; chorus member in Mozart’s The Magic Flute, Rapunzel’s Prince and the Wolf in Into the Woods, Disciple in Savior of the World, and Noah in The Ark. McCauley also spent six months as the host of a short-run Japanese cable television program teaching English to Japanese elementary kids. His most recent stage project was originating the role (a personal bucket-list item) of King Ahasuerus in a new musical, ESTHER: An Instrument of Peace, by local composer Kimberly Kofoed. Additionally, McCauley is featured on the original cast recording (available on all streaming platforms), performed two sold out staged concert performances, and served as a co-producer.

McCauley met his wife and Cantus partner, Erika Carlson McCauley, in the internationally-renowned BYU Singers, directed by Dr. Ronald Staheli. McCauley has sung under the direction of Rosalind Hall and Mack Wilberg in the BYU Concert Choir and Men’s Chorus, respectively. He had the privilege of spending a week with Eric Whitacre recording the highly acclaimed CD, Eric Whitacre: The Complete A Cappella Works, 1991-2001 with the BYU Singers. McCauley was a demo recording vocalist, recorded sound effects for a video game (sounds of getting punched … he must have a punchable voice), and was a founding member of two successful collegiate male a cappella ensembles: Inside Out and Moose Butter. He has had the privilege of performing as a soloist and with various ensembles in Arizona, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Utah, Washington, Wyoming, Canada, Sweden, and Japan, where he was a featured soloist at the Kanagawa Arts Theater (KAAT), the largest performing arts center south of Tokyo-proper.

McCauley took piano lessons for 12 years as a youth, and has been studying voice since high school. His teachers include Linda Walker, director of Treasure Valley Young Artists; Anna Gray, founder of the Meridian Symphony; and Dr. Barry Bounous of Brigham Young University’s Music Dance Theatre Department. McCauley has studied classical and contemporary voice with Allison Linton since 2015; and has had lessons or master classes with Dr. Laura Rushing-Raynes, (Boise State University); Dr. Johnathon Retzlaff (Eastman School of Music); Dr. Robert Breault, (University of Utah); Dr. Darrell Babidge, (The Juilliard School); Dr. Melissa Heath, (Utah Valley University); and Gayle Lockwood, retired professor of voice at Brigham Young University’s Music Dance Theater Department.

Prior to his current roles, McCauley worked as the art director of seven radio stations in Portland, Oregon for Entercom, the largest radio-only company in the US, and did projects for the NFL, Toyota, Miller Genuine Draft, Saatchi & Saatchi, Mercedes-Benz, and Vitamin Water, where he received the President’s Award and had the surreal experience of having his work featured in the New York Times, and shown on billboards, bus wraps, train wraps and websites across the Portland area. (This was all during a time when people still listened to the radio!) He designed hundreds of websites for radio station across the United States. He championed several new technologies and practices within his company (podcasting, radio streaming over internet, web-based advertising, email marketing, street marketing, online auctions) during the radio-web boom of the early 2000’s and was a nationally sought-after consultant for combining traditional radio campaigns with web-based support.

Mr. and Mrs. McCauley have been married since 2004 and have two sons and a daughter. He loves cooking (AND eating), reading, making movies, singing, playing the piano, and graphic design. McCauley’s mentors include: Linda Walker, Anna Gray, Carrie Bastian, John Hamilton, Mack Wilberg, Rosalind Hall, Ronald Staheli, Barry Bounous, and Allison Linton.