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Dr. Jerry McCoy
Music Director and Conductor
Dr. Jerry McCoy, a leading international figure in choral music, is Director of Choral Studies and Professor of Music at The University of North Texas, the nation’s largest college of music. At UNT he conducts the renowned A Cappella Choir, the North Texas Chamber Choir and Grand Chorus, teaches graduate choral conducting and advanced choral techniques, and guides the choral studies program.
Professor McCoy also maintains a high profile outside his university post. He was founding artistic director and conductor of Texas Choral Artists, a professional chamber choir; is editor of his own choral music series for Santa Barbara Publishers, and serves as associate resident conductor for Mid-America Productions, New York City. His is past president of the American Choral Directors Association.
Dr. McCoy is one of the United States’ most respected clinicians, having led all-state, regional and festival choruses in 33 states. He has served in similar capacities internationally, as guest clinician for the Association of British Choral Directors (Chester, England); Coro Dialecto Urbano (Caracas, Venezuela); in Sweden for Musik I Vasternorland, the University of Luleå Musikhögskolan, and the Luleå Kammerkor; and in Korea for Keim Yung University (Daegu) and the Korean Chorus Center (Seoul).
In 2008 Dr. McCoy led a select group of Texas high school singers in a salute to Beijing, China, as part of pre-Olympic festivities in Beijing and Shanghai. The tour included concerts, interaction with Chinese high school singers and the opportunity to create lasting bonds between the people of China and the United States.
Dr. McCoy is a former Schola Cantorum singer himself. He credits that experience in 1972 and 1973 with rejuvenating his music career. “I had gotten away from music for awhile in the early 70s,” McCoy explained. “Then (former Schola Cantorum director) Gary Ebensberger introduced me to this choir. I had such a fantastic experience with Schola that there was no doubt in my mind I had to devote myself to a career in music.”
Dr. McCoy completed his undergraduate studies in choral music education at the University of Texas at Arlington, studying with Dr. Ebensberger. He holds advanced degrees in choral conducting from The University of Texas at Austin. He has studied in conductor exchange programs in Venezuela, Sweden, and Germany and has attended master classes with Frieder Bernius and Eric Ericson. His writings on choral music have been published in The Choral Journal, Common Times, and Sooner Style. In the 1990s he sang and recorded with the Robert Shaw Festival Singers in New York and Southern France.
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