Connor Boring-Mackie

Connor Boring-Mackie is a vocalist, guitarist, and pianist who believes music is something people carry actively throughout their lives — and building that requires treating trust as a prerequisite for everything else. For Connor, everything a student needs is already within them. His job is to create the conditions for them to find it. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Music with a minor in Vocal Performance from Oregon State University, where he studied voice under tenor Nicholas Larson and conducted the Meistersingers, the university’s tenor-bass chorale.

Having played guitar and piano for over ten years, he has studied both instruments formally — guitar under Dr. Cameron O’Connor and piano under Dr. Crystal Zimmerman. The deepest influence on his teaching has been composer and professor Bill Whitley, whose conviction that music theory is a living grammar rather than a technical exercise continues to shape how Connor brings theory into every lesson as a form of creative exploration.

Across five years of music education study and hands-on teaching — in public school classrooms, disability learning centers, and as director of the Corvallis Community Choir — Connor has worked with students of every age, background, and ability. He designs lessons around what each student is genuinely drawn to, using curiosity as the entry point for building technique, theory, ear training, and musical identity together. He welcomes students of every level, and family involvement is always part of the process — because when the people around a student are engaged, music becomes part of life, not just the lesson. Outside of teaching, Connor is an active guitarist with a love for jazz, folk, meditative and improvisatory music.

He enjoys cooking, hiking, and astronomy as he carries an endless fascination for learning.