Jeffrey Richard Carter

February 2008 - Jeffrey Carter will become Chair of the Department of Music at Webster University on June 16, 2008.

Jeffrey Richard Carter, a native of the Kansas City, Missouri area, is Associate Professor of Music Performance at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, a doctoral institution numbering approximately 18,000 students. He is a versatile conductor and teacher whose performance experience and training ranges through nearly 1000 years of western musical tradition, and who has gained success with university ensembles, amateur choral groups, show choirs, volunteer church choirs, and festival choruses. His performing and educational endeavors have taken him to the continents of Asia, South America, and Europe, in addition to the continental United States.

At Ball State, Dr. Carter leads University Singers, while concurrently serving as Associate Director of the School of Music. During Spring 2008, he is Acting Director of Choral Activities as well. Ball State University Singers toured throughout the People's Republic of China in May 2005, garnering rave reviews and standing-room-only audiences at several venues in Beijing, Shijiazhuang, Deyang, and Shanghai. Dr. Carter is recognized nationally as a leading proponent of show choir as part of a comprehensive music curriculum. He led the Missouri All-State Show Choir in July 2006, and the Alabama All-State Show Choir in January 2007. The 2007-2008 season finds him adjudicating at a number of choral events across the country, conducting the Alabama All-State Men's Choir, and leading University Singers as the headliner group at a FAME Show Choir National event in Branson, Missouri.

In 2005-2006 Dr. Carter assumed the national chairmanship of the Youth and Student Activities Repertoire and Standards Committee for the American Choral Directors Association. He traveled to Alaska to direct a district festival chorus, led University Singers in various concert performances in the Midwest, and returned to Shanghai on a short-term visiting professorship. In May 2006 he led sixteen Ball State students on a three-week East Asia Studies Program immersion experience to China.

During the 2003-04 school year, Dr. Carter led Chamber Choir, the flagship choral ensemble. University Singers performed under his direction in December 2001 at the White House during the holiday season, and appeared by invitation in 2004 at both the Indiana Music Educators Association convention and the ACDA Central Division convention. Dr. Carter led the Concert Choir in performance the 2003 IMEA convention, demonstrating flexibility and expressiveness as one of the hallmarks of the group, along with an enviable reputation for stylistic integrity and nuanced singing. In 2002 he became editor of the award-winning Indiana Choral Directors Association Notations. Under Dr. Carter's guidance, the Ball State University ACDA chapter was named the 2005 Collegiate Chapter of the Year by the national ACDA organization. He is currently the national chairman for Youth and Student Activities for ACDA.

Previous activities while at Ball State include adjudication and provided master class teaching at the 21 Century International Choral Festival in Malaysia (2003), service as overall program chair of the Central Division ACDA convention (2004), leadership of a week-long composer residency program at Ball State University featuring American composer Gwyneth Walker (2003), a tour with University Singers to California (2004), and leadership of a conductor residency featuring Simon Carrington at Ball State (2004). In April 2005, Dr. Carter was named Ball State University's Outstanding Organization Advisor for the academic year, in recognition of his work with the student ACDA Chapter.

Prior to his appointment at Ball State, Dr. Carter taught chorus and voice—both performance and related topics—at Kentucky Wesleyan College. He has extensive choral and vocal teaching experience, gained at such schools as the University of Kansas, Graceland University in Iowa, the University of Central Missouri, the Metropolitan Community Colleges in Kansas City, and at Music/Arts Institute, a community school for the arts in Independence, Missouri. In addition to university teaching duties, Dr. Carter maintains an active schedule of clinics, adjudications, and workshops throughout the Midwest, and teaches private voice lessons through his own studio.

Dr. Carter led the Jacomo Chorale, a community chorus based in Blue Springs, Missouri, for a decade, leading that group to unprecedented successes in audience growth and annual fund contributions. He most recently conducted the Owensboro Symphony Orchestra Chorus. Dr. Carter also served churches in the Kansas City and Lawrence, Kansas areas as Director of Music, as well as churches in Anderson and Muncie, Indiana. He is currently a Vestry member and Senior Warden at Grace Episcopal Church in Muncie.

A recipient of the Opus Award from the Missouri Choral Directors Association for his composition Phos Hilaron, Dr. Carter remains an active composer. In addition to many other organizations, he is a member of the Herbert Howells Society and the Edward Elgar Society.

He holds the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Choral Conducting from the University of Kansas, and the Master of Arts degree in Vocal Performance from Central Missouri State University. His professional debut in 1989 was as a singer with the Kansas City Lyric Opera; as a conductor, his debut in 1990 was with the Jacomo Chorale. Dr. Carter participated in a month-long exchange program to Brazil in 2001, and he frequently conducts student tours to the United Kingdom. He is listed in the 2005 edition of Who's Who in Education, the 2006 Who's Who in America, and the 2007 Who's Who in the World. Dr. Carter is especially proud that his students are now in prominent positions in such various places as the male ensemble Chanticleer, on Broadway, and on various college and university faculties.