David Howard is Interim 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 and 2024. Their album Voces in Concordia is available on all streaming services. The OU Men’s Glee Club’s album of OU spirit songs, Fight for OKU: The Legendary OU Men’s Glee Club is also available on all streaming services. Both choirs recently released a second album Septemundos.
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), Charpentier’s Messe de minuit pour Noël, H.9 (1694), a program of the music of Hapsburg Spain, and two concerts with the Oklahoma Baroque Orchestra: “Venetian Holiday: Music of Monteverdi, Gabrieli, Legrenzi, and Schütz,” and “A Concert Spirituel: Music of Rameau, Delalande, and Lully.” Upcoming concerts will feature early Baroque music from the French court and Roland de Lassus’s Psalmi Davidis Poentitentiales (1584).
Equally at home as a baritone soloist, Dr. Howard has performed nationally and internationally in oratorio and cantata presentations, and as a recitalist. Recent performances include Schubert’s Winterreise, D. 911 with pianist Igor Lipinski, Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem, Op. 45 with the Tulsa Chorale and Orchestra, and Handel’s Messiah with the Bartlesville Chorale and Orchestra. His commercial 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 has presented on a range of topics at national conferences including the American Choral Directors Association, the Texas Music Educators Association, and the Kansas Music Educators Association.
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-seven years and have four children. Their eldest son, who met his wife singing in his father’s choir, is a full-time Oklahoma National Guardsman. Their daughter and son-in-law reside in Tacoma, Washington, where he is an active duty soldier in the United States Army.
