Dr. Heather MacLaughlin Garbes is currently Affiliate Assistant Professor at the University of Washington, where she helped develop and maintains the UW Baltic Choral Library. She is also Founder and Artistic Director of the Mägi Ensemble, a professional women’s ensemble that performs and records Baltic music from the countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.  Dr. MacLaughlin Garbes has presented at ACDA National and Divisional and College Music Society’s National and International conferences, the Library of Congress, the Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies International conferences. She co-authored the chapter “Baltic Languages: Latvian, Lithuanian and Estonian” in the book The Use of the International Phonetic Alphabet in the Choral Rehearsal (Scarecrow Press). Heather has conducted numerous collegiate and community ensembles in the Seattle, Chicago, and Houston areas and also currently conducts the Everett Chorale, the Finnish Choral Society of Seattle and Seattle’i Eesti Koor (Estonian). Dr. MacLaughlin Garbes has had the honor of being a preparatory conductor for the 2013 and 2018 Latvian National Song Festival, the 2019 Estonian National Song Festival and then 2014 and 2018 Lithuanian National Song Festivals as well as the Artistic Director for the 2021 West Coast Estonian Days Song Festival.