Throughout forty years in education, Dr. James Borst has taught Kindergarten through college level students. He taught K-12 music at North Muskegon Public Schools, K-12 music at Kentwood Public Schools and 8 th -12 th grade choral music at East Grand Rapids Public Schools. Borst also taught choral music and music education courses at Grand Valley State University and Calvin University. His career includes teaching at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp, St Cecilia Music Society and the North American Choral Company. Borst has been organist/choirmaster of several west Michigan churches.
He has taken master choral conducting classes with Doreen Rao, Sir David Willcocks, Alice Parker, Rene’ Clausen, Dale Warland and James Jordan. His degree program includes summer study at Westminster Choir College, Princeton. He earned a Level 1 certificate in Gordon Music Learning Theory.
James was president of the Michigan School Vocal Music Association from 2005-2011. Other MSVMA activities include editor of the newsletter, repertoire selection for middle and high school, festival adjudicator, and guest clinician. Throughout nearly four decades, Dr. Borst has presented lectures and sessions on choral music education at the Alma Summer Workshop, the Midwestern Music Conference-Ann Arbor, the MSVMA Summer Workshop, the Michigan Music Conference, Indiana Music Educators Association, Baldwin-Wallace Conservatory, and the MI-ACDA state convention. Borst received the Carolyn Leep scholarship in 1998, and his peers voted him to conduct the SSA Junior High State Honors Choir that same year. He will conduct the Michigan SATB State Honors Choir in January of 2026.
Borst was voted MSVMA Choir Teacher of the Year in 2011, and he won the Outstanding Music Educator Award from the Grand Rapids Symphony Orchestra in 2014. In May 2019, James received the Principal’s Award for meritorious contributions to East Grand Rapids High School. He was given the Pantlind award for outstanding contributions to the performing arts in East Grand Rapids in the spring of 2022. He is known for engaging singers in exhilarating choral rehearsals that focus on excellent pedagogy while enjoying positive and fun teaching strategies.
Under Borst’s direction, choirs appeared in Carnegie Hall, with the Grand Rapids Symphony Orchestra, and in collaboration with the Arts Chorale of GVSU. His choirs performed at the 2011 Michigan Music Conference and the 2014 ACDA state convention.
In his spare time, Borst enjoys learning to cook, attending Civic Theatre and GR Symphony Orchestra concerts, reading, travelling, studying architecture and design, and antiquing. James is married to Dr. Joan Borst, author and professor of social work at GVSU. The Borst’s have two married children and four granddaughters who live in Chicago, Illinois and Raleigh, North Carolina. Jim and Joan reside in East Grand Rapids, Michigan.
