Dr. Daniel Farris

Daniel serves as director of choral studies and vocal area coordinator, teaching applied voice, applied conducting, and the choral music education sequence to performance, education, business, and music therapy majors. He also teaches the Southwestern summer choral camp for OMEA/OCDA preparation and other workshops during the academic year that work to further enrich and improve the audition skills needed for successful placement in the state-level honor choirs.

Raised in the strong choral tradition of west Texas music education, Daniel completed a Bachelor of Music with all-level teacher certification at Angelo State University and taught at the junior high and high school levels in San Angelo, TX, and Arlington, TX, respectively.  He holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in conducting with related fields of music theory and musicology from the University of North Texas.  His conducting mentors are Candis Rogers-Hicks, Pamela Lee, Jerry McCoy, Stephen Dubberly, and Henry Gibbons.

Daniel is a regional and international scholar with focused interests in choral conducting pedagogy, vocal pedagogy, score study/editing, and modern language diction, having presented at international and regional conferences on these topics. In his tenure at Southwestern, he has conducted workshops, taught classes as a visiting professor, and presented at various conferences and universities in the United States, central Europe, and southeast Asia.  Daniel’s choirs have performed as honor choirs at conferences in Italy, Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. Daniel is an active clinician, adjudicator, and conductor.  He also was a church musician for 24 years, but hung up his church choir director hat at the tender age of 40, having served several congregations in Texas and Oklahoma, the last one being First Presbyterian Church in Elk City, OK.

Daniel spends his non-professional time reading, cooking, hanging with family and friends, and pursuing various enological topics.

For more information or questions about the vocal/choral division and study in Southwestern’s Music Department, email or call 580.774.3208.