Choral Faculty
American conductor, Richard Zielinski, is known for his innovative programming and versatility as both an orchestral and choral conductor. Richard serves as Director of Choral Activities on the music faculty at the University of Oklahoma. A passionate and compelling communicator, with an extensive knowledge of classical and contemporary repertoire, he has premiered performances of Die Schöpfung and Carmina Burana choreographed for ballet as well as numerous stage productions for musical theater.
A champion of new music, Richard Zielinski has worked with numerous composers and regularly leads the choirs at OU and the Norman Philharmonic in performances of contemporary works from composers like Libby Larsen, John Mackey, and Michael Daugherty. His professional vocal ensemble, the Richard Zielinski Singers, has also recorded works by Norman Dello Joio, Libby Larsen, Stephen Paulus, Eleanor Daley, David Del Tredici, Alice Parker, and Eric Whitacre among others.
Richard Zielinski begins his seventh year as artistic director and conductor of the 40-year-old Classical Music Festival Eisenstädter Sommerakademie; and serves as Music Director and Artistic Director for the Norman Philharmonic. He has conducted extensively both in the United States and abroad including The Florida Orchestra, Tampa Bay Symphony Orchestra, Naples Philharmonic, Elgin Symphony, Danville Symphony Orchestra, and Poland’s Szczecin Philaharmonic Orchestra. He has also held several positions abroad including artistic director and conductor for Chor Akademicki Politechniki Szczecinskiej, In Terra Pax, and the International Festival of Choral Song in Poland.
Throughout his career, Richard Zielinski has devoted time to working with students and young artists. In addition to creating and leading outreach programs with the Norman Philharmonic, he also has worked with students at numerous music festivals in the United States and abroad. Zielinski also serves as Director of Music Ministries at McFarlin Memorial United Methodist Church in Norman, Oklahoma.
David Howard is Associate Director of Choral Activities at the University of Oklahoma where he conducts the OU Men’s Glee Club and the OU Women’s Chorus. He also teaches graduate and undergraduate choral literature and choral conducting in addition to coordinating the annual Young Men’s Vocal Workshop and the Women’s Choral Leadership Workshop. His collegiate choirs, civic choruses, opera choruses, church choirs, secondary school choirs and festival choirs in the United States and Europe have been hailed for their artistry. The OU Women’s Chorus performed by invitation at the Oklahoma Music Educators Association annual conference in 2018.
Dr. Howard is the founder and artistic director Schola Cantorum Oklahoma, a professional choral ensemble dedicated to the performance of early music. Schola Cantorum Oklahoma has performed the complete Triumphs of Oriana (1601), and the music of Hapsburg Spain. Upcoming concerts will feature early Baroque music from the French court and Roland de Lassus’s Psalmi Davidis Poentitentiales (1584). Prior to his appointment at OU, Dr. Howard served on the faculty of the Stephen F. Austin State University School of Music and chorus master of Opera East Texas. He regularly serves as a clinician, consultant, and adjudicator.
Equally at home as a baritone soloist, Dr. Howard has performed nationally and internationally in oratorio and cantata presentations, and as a recitalist. His recently-released album of sacred music for voice, piano, and harp, entitled Consecration, on the Blue Griffin Records label, is available through streaming services.
Dr. Howard’s scholarly articles have appeared in the British academic music journal, Musical Times, and in The Choral Journal and ChorTeach. Moreover, his performing editions and choral arrangements are published by Alliance Music Publications.
He holds the Bachelor of Music Education degree and Master of Music degree in vocal performance from the University of Central Oklahoma and the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in choral conducting from Michigan State University.
Dr. Howard and his wife, Andrea, have been married for twenty-five years and have four children. Their eldest son is an Oklahoma National Guardsman. Andrea is a talented wedding cake artist and business owner.
Dr. Nathan Dougherty
Assistant Professor of Musicology
Office: Catlett Music Center 120
Nathan Dougherty is Assistant Professor of Musicology at the University of Oklahoma, where he teaches graduate courses in music history and directs the Collegium Musicum. He is a specialist in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century French song and song cultures, with broader interests in historical performance practices, gender studies, historiography, and the medical humanities. He has presented papers nationally and internationally at annual meetings of the American Musicological Society and the France: Musiques, Cultures, 1789-1918 network, as well as at the Rocky Mountain Music Scholars Conference, the Indiana University Historical Performance Conference, and the University of Oregon Musicking Conference. His research has been supported by numerous fellowships and awards, including a Richard A. Zdanis Research Scholarship Award, a travel grant from the M. Elizabeth C. Bartlet Fund, a Graduate Affiliateship at the Baker-Nord Center for the Humanities, and a Case Western Reserve University Fellowship at the Library of Congress.
He also maintains an active career as a tenor and haute-contre, and has sung with many of the nation’s leading early music ensembles, including Apollo’s Fire, Les Délices, The Newberry Consort, The Thirteen, Atlanta Baroque, Bourbon Baroque, and Trobàr.
He received his PhD in Historical Musicology with an emphasis in Historical Performance Practice from Case Western Reserve University in 2022. He holds degrees in Early Music Performance from the University of Southern California and Vocal Performance from St. Olaf College.
