Heather Vest is an Associate Director for the Cincinnati Youth Choir and director of Piccolo Coro. She has been with CYC since 2015. Before moving to the Cincinnati area in 2014, Heather lived for six years in New Mexico, where she founded and directed the Eastern New Mexico Children’s Choir. She taught 1st–12th-grade music at Melrose schools, while also teaching online classes for Eastern New Mexico University. Vest completed her bachelor’s degree in music education at Butler University in 2002 under the direction of Henry Leck and Eric Stark. She has since worked with choirs in Indiana, Utah, and New Mexico. Vest was a student of Metropolitan Opera soprano Claudia Waite and sang with the Butler Orchestra as a soloist with the Butler Chorale. She has been the guest clinician and conductor for the New Mexico Junior High School Honor Choir and has adjudicated at numerous Large Group and Solo and Ensemble festivals.