Jeffrey Douma
Specializations: choral conducting
About:
Jeffrey Douma is the Marshall Bartholomew Professor in the Practice of Choral Music at the Yale School of Music, and has served since 2003 as Director of the Yale Glee Club, hailed under his direction by The New York Times as “one of the best collegiate singing ensembles, and one of the most adventurous.” He also heads Yale’s graduate program in choral conducting and serves as founding Director of the Yale Choral Artists and Artistic Director of the Yale International Choral Festival.
Douma has appeared as guest conductor with choruses and orchestras on six continents, including the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic Orchestra, Singapore’s Metropolitan Festival Orchestra, Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra, Estonian National Youth Orchestra, Daejeon Philharmonic Choir, Buenos Aires Philharmonic Orchestra, Moscow Chamber Orchestra, Tbilisi Symphony Orchestra, Orquesta Solistas de la Habana, Istanbul’s Tekfen Philharmonic, Norway’s Edvard Grieg Kor, the Symphony Choir of Johannesburg, the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, and the Central Conservatory’s EOS Orchestra in Beijing, as well as the Yale Philharmonia and Yale Symphony Orchestras. He also serves as Musical Director of the Yale Alumni Chorus, which he has lead on eleven international tours. He served for five years as Choirmaster at the Cathedral of St. Joseph in Hartford, CT, where performances ranged from Bach St. John Passion with baroque orchestra to Arvo Pärt Te Deum, and more recently served as Director of Music at the Unitarian Society of New Haven.
Douma has presented at conferences of the ACDA and NCCO, and the Yale Glee Club has appeared as a featured ensemble at NCCO national and ACDA divisional conferences. Active with musicians of all ages, Douma served for four years on the conducting faculty at the Interlochen Center for the Arts. He frequently serves as clinician for festivals and honor choirs. Recent engagements include conducting masterclasses at the China International Chorus Festival, the University of Michigan School of Music, the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, the Royal Academy of Music in London, the Hochschule der Künste in Zurich, the Florence International Choral Festival, and the Berlin Radio Choir’s International Masterclass, as well as residencies at the Central Conservatory of Music, Beijing and at Luther College as Visiting Conductor of the internationally renowned Nordic Choir.
In 2003, Douma was one of only two North American conductors invited to compete for the first Eric Ericson Award, the premier international competition for choral conductors. Prior to his appointment at Yale he served as Director of Choral Activities at Carroll College, and also taught on the conducting faculties of Smith College and St. Cloud State University.