Richard Bjella
Richard Bjella was most recently hired in September 2009 as
full professor and Director of Choral Studies at Texas Tech
University. The highly acclaimed University Choir who made
its Carnegie performance debut on May 2, 2010 to rave
reviews.
They just performed as the only college choir to sing at the
2012 TMEA Convention in San Antonio to two standing ovations
and will be appearing at the 2013 ACDA National Convention
as well.
Previous to 2009, Bjella was the Director of Choral Studies at Lawrence University, Conservatory of Music. The Concert Choir most recently performed for the 2009 National American Choral Directors Association Convention in Oklahoma City. Bjella has conducted outside the United States in Prague, Paris, Lucerne, Vilnius, Seoul, and London and has guest conducted over 350 festivals and workshops in 29 states. Most recently he was honored to conduct the Arizona All-State, the All Northwest 6 state MENC All-State (Seattle), the Connecticut All-State, the Collegiate All-State Choir in Wisconsin, the National OAKE HS choir in Phoenix, AZ, Mozart Requiem in Lincoln Center, and presented sessions in Tennessee and Washington for music educators. This year he is presenting workshops or guest conducting in Ohio, Tennessee, Iowa, Florida, Georgia, Texas, New York, New Jersey, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Alaska. He will be presenting a session at the National ACDA convention in 2013.
Bjella served as President of the Wisconsin Choral Directors’ Association, has been a part of the Comprehensive Musicianship through Performance leadership team for Wisconsin Music Educators Association, and various state and regional leadership positions with ACDA and WMEA as well. He was been inducted into the Washington High School Fine Arts Hall of Fame, and is also listed in the World Concert Artist Directory of Conductors and Biltmore’s “Who’s, Who in America”, and was most recently awarded the Hanns Kretzchmar Award for Excellence in the Arts in 2006 and received the ‘Lawrence Excellence in Teaching Award’ in 2007.
To contact Richard Bjella, you may e-mail him at richard.bjella@ttu.edu.