Jeffrey Douma became Director of the Yale Glee Club, Yale’s principal undergraduate mixed chorus and oldest musical organization, in 2003, and also serves as Associate Professor at the Yale School of Music, where he teaches graduate level choral conducting and choral literature.
Douma has appeared as guest conductor with choruses and orchestras on six continents, including the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic Orchestra, Buenos Aires Philharmonic Orchestra, Daejeon Philharmonic Choir, Moscow Chamber Orchestra, Windsor Symphony Orchestra, Orquesta Solistas de la Habana, and the Symphony Choir of Johannesburg. He also currently serves as Musical Director of the Yale Alumni Chorus, which he has lead on six international tours, and as Choirmaster at the Cathedral of St. Joseph in Hartford, CT, where recent and upcoming performances include Duruflé Requiem, Finzi In terra pax, Handel Messiah with the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, Robert Levin’s completion of the Mozart Requiem, and Bach St. John Passion with baroque orchestra.
Choirs under his direction have performed in Leipzig’s Neue Gewandhaus, Dvorak Hall in Prague, St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, Argentina’s Teatro Colon, Sydney Town Hall, Avery Fischer 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 Orbellian, Krzysztof Penderecki, Nicholas McGegan, and Helmuth Rilling.
The Yale Glee Club performed the East Coast premiere of Aaron Jay Kernis Symphony of Meditations at the 2009 NCCO National Conference, and he has presented at state, divisional, and national conventions of the ACDA and NCCO. 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 recently 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, Rene Clausen, Lee Hoiby, 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 Arcadia Players, 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, a new 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. Jeffrey 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.
In all its years, the Yale Glee Club has had only six previous directors:
Gustave J. Stoeckel (1861–1873)
Thomas G. Shepard (1873–1905)
G. Frank Goodale 1889 (1905–1921)
Marshall Bartholomew ’09 (1921–1953)
Fenno F. Heath, Jr. ’50 (1953–1992)
David H. Connell dma ’91 (1992–2002)
