Keith McCauley

Vice President, Board of Directors

Associate Director of Fortis, Concordia and VoiceOver

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 (with nearly 75 titles) 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 and released singles and music videos to global audiences.

In addition to Cantus, McCauley is on the ownership teams of Container and Packaging, a packaging distribution company; PrintTracker, an enterprise print management software company; inkr Printing, a commercial printing company; a real-estate investment company; and also serves on the boards of Hand in Hand Family Mentorship, a nonprofit dedicated to providing a friend for families in need; and the Idaho Chapter of the American Choral Directors Association (IDACDA). McCauley served for seven years on the board of the Distinguished Young Women of Boise Valley, and three years on the board of the Treasure Valley Chapter of the National Association of Teachers of Singing (TVNATS).

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 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, The Lamb of God. In May 2024, McCauley was hired to arrange and conduct the music for the Idaho’s Patty Duke Awards (the state-wide high school musical theater qualifying competition for Broadway’s Jimmy Awards).

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 adaptation of Snow White & The Seven Dwarves, 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 in Into the Woods, disciple in Savior of the World, and Noah in the off-broadway musical The Ark. McCauley also spent six months as the host of a Japanese cable television program teaching English to Japanese elementary kids.

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 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. McCauley has taken voice lessons from 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. 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.