Kyle Haugen (b. 1973) is a versatile musician with experience spanning Baroque organ to musical theater. A native of Tacoma, WA, he majored in music at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, WA before earning the Master of Sacred Music degree from Luther Seminary, St. Paul, MN, in conjunction with St. Olaf College.
Kyle’s choral compositions and arrangements are published with Augsburg Fortress and Pavane Publishing. Since 2000, his music has been performed, recorded, and broadcast on radio and television across the United States. His choral pieces have earned recognition on regional and national American Choral Directors Association lists and as “Editor’s Choice” by one of the leading national music retailers in the United States.
Currently, Kyle is the full-time Cantor at Queen Anne Lutheran Church in Seattle, where he serves as organist, director of parish ensembles, and coordinator of concerts and arts outreach. In 2018, Kyle was named the second Artistic Director of Northwest Repertory Singers, an auditioned choral ensemble of forty to fifty voices. In 2017, he served as Artistic Director for Northwest Reformation 500 and led a massed choir of 250 singers from across the Puget Sound region to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Reformation.
Kyle is passionate about bringing mountaintop musical experiences to singers of all ages. For nearly a decade, he directed the high school Men’s Choir and co-directed the mixed Chorale for Tacoma Youth Chorus, and he led the touring choirs to England and Ireland. Kyle has also served as music director for youth and community musical theaters and teaches voice to youth and adults.
As a freelance professional choral singer, Kyle has performed with ensembles in the Seattle area including the Byrd Ensemble, The Compline Choir, the Schola Cantorum of St. James Cathedral, and Schola Stella Maris. He has also toured in Europe with Boston’s Canto Armonico and with Seattle’s St. James Cathedral Choir. In the early 2000’s Kyle served as organist, choir director, and professional choral singer at churches in Boston, MA. During this time he was the tenor soloist for the premiere of Daniel Pinkham’s Missa Brevis and contributed to two landmark recordings of Renaissance choral works with the historic Choir of the Church of the Advent.
After living in places that are too cold in winter and too hot in summer, Kyle loves the water, mountains, arts scene, and the weather (mostly!) of the Seattle area, where he grew up. He lives near his childhood home in Tacoma and enjoys seeing how the arts have flourished in his hometown.