A Brunswick native, new Oratorio Chorale conductor Emily Isaacson is also music director of Boston City Singers’ upper high school division.

In 2004, she was one of two U.S. citizens awarded the St. Andrews Society Fellowship for graduate study in Scotland, where she earned a master’s degree in musicology from Edinburgh University. She earned a second master’s degree from the University of Oregon and is currently a doctoral candidate in choral conducting at the University of Illinois.

Isaacson says that part of being a conductor is being able to “perform” the music and, for that, she credits her experiences with the Theater Project under Al Miller, Lee Paige, Chris Price and Wendy Poole.

She would like to combine the arts into a larger spectacle, she said. “People come to a classical music event now and sit quietly in rows and listen to the music and clap at the end. But historically, that’s not how what we think of as classical music was listened to. Sacred music was heard in church; profane music was heard at royal courts, as part of plays, in drinking halls. I am very interested in how the arts speak to one another.”

She said she would like to provide those sorts of experiences with the Oratorio Chorale. She would like to form partnerships with theaters and other musical organizations to provide a more “complete” picture of the art.

Upcoming Chorale events include “Shakespeare in Concert” in March, and Brahms’ “Requiem” in June.