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Professor Scott Tucker
Priscilla Edwards Browning Director of Choral Music
Scott Tucker is the Priscilla E. Browning Director of Choral Music at Cornell University, where he conducts the Cornell University Glee Club and the Cornell University Chorus. He also oversees the activities of the Cornell Chorale, Chamber Singers, and music for Sage Chapel.
Under Professor Tucker's leadership, the Cornell choirs have collaborated with such acclaimed artists as Anonymous 4, Peter Schreier, and Samité Mulondo, and were featured on NPR's "A Prairie Home Companion" hosted by Garrison Keillor. Recently, he conducted the Glee Club at the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA) National Conference in Oklahoma City, and at the ACDA Regional Convention in Boston, MA. He also conducted combined Chorus and Glee Club performances of Brahms's Ein Deutsches Requiem in Beijing, Shanghai, and Hong Kong.
Professor Tucker is an active clinician in areas as diverse as male singing, new repertoire for women's choirs, and traditional African music. He has appeared as a guest conductor for numerous choral festivals and summer music camps. He has also served as both cover conductor and guest conductor of the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra. He has been the Repertoire and Standards Chair for Male Choirs in the Eastern Division of the American Choral Directors Association, and is a board member of Intercollegiate Men's Choirs. He is also an active member of the International Federation of Choral Music and a charter member of the National Collegiate Choral Organization.
Prior to coming to Cornell, Professor Tucker was choral director of Milton Academy and assistant conductor at Harvard University. He was also a paid tenor soloist at King's Chapel, Boston under the direction of Daniel Pinkham.
Professor Tucker received a Master of Music degree in choral conducting from the New England Conservatory of Music, a Bachelor of Music degree in trumpet performance from the New England Conservatory, and a Bachelor of Science degree from Tufts University, where he was a Presser Scholar. His awards include Milton Academy's Talbot Baker Award for excellence in teaching, the St. Botolph Award for notable artists in the Boston area, the Cornell Student Activities Outstanding Advisor Award, and Cornell's Stephen and Margery Russell Distinguished Teaching Award.
Birth:
September 17, 1957
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John Rowehl
Assistant Conductor
John Rowehl is a doctoral student in the Performance Practice program within Cornell's Department of Music. He has served as the assistant conductor of the Cornell University Glee Club since 2002, and in 2005 took on the same role with the Cornell University Chorus. John was recognized with an Otto R. Stahl award for Choral Music in 2008 and the Dean's Prize for Distinguished Teaching in 2009. In the current academic year (2010-2011), he is also conducting the Cornell University Chorale and the Cornell University Chamber Singers.
Trained in classical piano from the age of seven, and a competition-winning pianist as a teenager, John first came to Cornell as a graduate student in Philosophy (an affliction from which he has mostly recovered). John's performance focus is on choral conducting, and his dissertation examines the tension between standard conceptions of the performance practice of choral art music and the role of music in creating and sustaining community.
When not in the library or at a choral rehearsal, John teaches in Cornell's vocal coaching program, learns Ghanaian music with the World Drum and Dance Ensemble, and indulges his love of beach volleyball as often as Ithaca's weather permits.
John earned a B.A. in philosophy at Stanford University, where he also studied voice and served as vocal accompanist. John has been heard as baritone soloist in the Finger Lakes Bach Festival, with Ensemble Sine Nomine, and NYS Baroque. A long-time member of the Cayuga Vocal Ensemble, John served in 1997-1998 as the group's Acting Musical Director.
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Professor Thomas Sokol
Professor Emeritus
Professor Sokol served as acting Director of the CUGC and the Cornell Chorus while Professor Tucker was on sabbatical during the 2002-2003 academic year.
Since joining the Cornell Music faculty in 1957, Thomas Sokol has served as Director of Choral Music; Department Chairman; Conductor of the Glee Club, Chorus, Chorale, Chamber Singers and Sage Chapel Choir; and, since 1995, as Professor Emeritus. He also has been Conductor and Music Director of The Dessoff Choirs of New York and the Buffalo Schola Cantorum and Choral Conductor at Tanglewood and at Saratoga Performing Arts Center.
Professor Sokol has conducted concerts, broadcasts, and telecasts in twenty-seven countries and he has been chorusmaster for over four hundred concerts in collaboration with distinguished conductors and eminent orchestras. He served terms as President of the Intercollegiate Musical Society and the Cayuga Chamber Orchestra and he has been awarded a Carnegie Fellowship in Teaching, a Ford Foundation Grant in the Arts and Humanities, the National Orchestral Association Conducting Award and a New York State Council on the Arts Grant.
Professor Sokol served as acting Director of the CUGC and the Cornell Chorus while Professor Tucker was on sabbatical during the 2002-2003 academic year.