Jeffrey Douma

Since the fall of 2003, Jeffrey Douma has served as Director of the Yale Glee Club, recently hailed by The New York Times as "one of the best collegiate singing ensembles, and one of the most adventurous."  He also serves as Associate Professor of Conducting at the Yale School of Music, where he teaches conducting and literature in the graduate choral program.
 
Douma has appeared as guest conductor with choruses and orchestras on six continents, including the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic Orchestra, Daejeon Philharmonic Choir, Tbilisi Symphony Orchestra, Buenos Aires Philharmonic Orchestra, Moscow Chamber Orchestra, Windsor Symphony Orchestra, Orquesta Solistas de la Habana, Istanbul's Tekfen Philharmonic, and the Symphony Choir of Johannesburg. He also currently serves as Musical Director of the Yale Alumni Chorus, which he has lead on seven international tours, and as Choirmaster at the Cathedral of St. Joseph in Hartford, CT, where recent performances include Handel Messiah with the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, Schütz Musikalische Exequien and Bach St. John Passion with baroque orchestra, and Robert Levin’s completion of Mozart Requiem.

 

Choirs under his direction have performed in Leipzig’s Neue Gewandhaus, Dvorak Hall in Prague, St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, Notre Dame de Paris, Argentina’s Teatro Colon, Avery Fisher Hall and Carnegie Hall, and he has prepared choruses for performances under such eminent conductors as Valery Gergiev, Sir Neville Marriner, Sir David Willcocks, Constantine Orbelian, Dale Warland, Krzysztof Penderecki, Nicholas McGegan, and Helmuth Rilling.
 
Douma has presented at state, divisional, and national conventions of the ACDA and NCCO, and the Yale Glee Club appeared as a featured ensemble at the 2009 NCCO National Conference.  Active with musicians of all ages, Douma served for four years on the conducting faculty at the Interlochen Center for the Arts, America’s premier training ground for high school age musicians, conducting the Concert Choir, Women’s Choir, and Festival Choir.  He frequently serves as clinician for festivals and honor choirs. 

 

An advocate of new music, Douma established the Yale Glee Club Emerging Composers Competition and Fenno Heath Award, and has premiered new works by such composers as Dominick Argento, Ned Rorem, Jan Sandström, Ted Hearne, Lee Hoiby, Rene Clausen, Lewis Spratlan, and James Macmillan. He also serves as editor of the Yale Glee Club New Classics Choral Series, published by Boosey & Hawkes. A tenor, Douma has appeared as an ensemble member and frequent soloist with the nation’s leading professional choirs, including the Dale Warland Singers, Bella Voce of Chicago, the Oregon Bach Festival Chorus under Helmuth Rilling, and the Robert Shaw Festival Singers.
 
In the spring of 2003, Douma was one of only two North American conductors invited to compete for the first Eric Ericson Award, an international competition for choral conductors.  Prior to his appointment at Yale he taught at Carroll College, where he was Director of Choral Activities, and also served on the conducting faculties of Smith College and St. Cloud State University. 

 

Douma earned a Bachelor of Music degree from Concordia College, Moorhead, MN, and holds both the Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees in conducting from the University of Michigan.  He lives in Hamden, CT, with his wife, pianist Erika Schroth, and their two children, Sofia and Will.