Choral Director Carmen Flórez-Mansi, a native of New Mexico, has performed as a vocal artist, choral conductor, vocal instructor, and liturgy specialist throughout the Southwest. She has appeared with The Santa Fe Symphony Orchestra & Chorus, Santa Fe Desert Chorale, and the Santa Fe Opera. She founded the Choral Arts Society at St. Michael’s High School in 2014 and was its Director until August 2024. Under her direction, this advanced 42-member chorus won the New Mexico Music Educators 2017 State 4A Choral Championship and the 2019 3A State Championship, which took place at Cleveland High School in Albuquerque. 

With the Santa Fe Opera, Mrs. Florez-Mansi served as Children’s Chorus Master and Vocal Coach for Shoes for the Santo Niño, an opera composed by Stephen Paulus and based on the children’s story by New Mexico native Peggy Pond Church; Chorus Master and Music Director for the world premiere of Sweet Potato Kicks the Sun by composer Augusta Read Thomas and librettist Andrea Fellows Fineberg; and Chorus Master and Music Director for the world premiere of Hometown to the World by composer Laura Kaminsky and librettist Kimberly Reed. 

Carmen also is the Pastoral Director of Music at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi. She was Director of the Cathedral’s Office of Worship from 2001 to 2012. From 2008 to 2010, she led the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi in an 18-month liturgical and musical celebration of the 400 Years of Faith in New Mexico Quarto Centennial events, which included the visit of the Spanish Royal Family. She relocated to Napa, California in 2012 to become Director of Liturgy & Music at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church & School. During this period, she was also the Director of Development & Donor Relations for the San Francisco-based early music group American Bach Soloists. 

In 2007, Mrs. Flórez-Mansi and 55 members of the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi Pontifical Chorus performed Handel’s Messiah at Carnegie Hall under the direction of renowned composer John Rutter. That year, she released a recording of sacred psalms titled “Salmos de mi Alma.” She returned to Carnegie Hall in 2016 with nearly a hundred Santa Fe singers—most of them from the Cathedral Basilica’s Pontifical Chorus—to conduct Rutter’s Magnificat under the direction of Dr. David R. Thye. She and her choristers were later honored with an invitation to join the Sistine Chapel Choir for the Closing Mass of the Jubilee Year of Mercy, celebrated by His Holiness Pope Francis, at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. She was Choral Conductor at Carnegie Hall’s Father’s Day concert in 2017, performing Rutter’s Mass of the Children, and again in 2023 to for another performance of Magnificat.

Mrs. Flórez-Mansi has hosted and served as choral conductor and liturgist for numerous events at the Cathedral Basilica, such as Vesper Service for the Papal Nuncio and 285 members of U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. She has also served as a plenum speaker and clinician in the areas of sacred music and liturgy for the Southwest Liturgical Conference, Hispanic Pastoral Musicians Conference, and National Pastoral Musicians Conference.

She and her husband Tom have two sons, Thomasluke and Estevan.