Associate Professor
Music Education
Choral Studies
Contact Information
Cogswell Hall 213
Craig.Denison@iup.edu
724-357-7918
Courses Taught
Men’s Chorus
General/Choral Methods
Pre-Student Teaching
Class Voice
Student Teaching Supervision
Psychology of Music Learning
Degrees
PhD, University of Miami
MM, Westminster Choir College
BM, Houghton College
Biography
Craig Denison is associate director of Music Education and Choral Music at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Before that, he served as artistic director of Florida’s Singing Sons Boychoir and director of the Master Chorale at Florida International University.
He taught for many years at Saint Mark’s Episcopal School as director of Vocal Music. Denison has also served as music director for the Colorado Children’s Chorale and associate music director and conductor of the American Boychoir. He founded the
Schola Cantorum at Westminster Choir College as assistant professor of Choral Conducting. He currently serves as the American Choral Director’s National Chair for Repertoire and Standards in Boychoirs.
In the 2017–18 academic year, Denison’s chapter on boychoir pedagogy was published in The Oxford Handbook of Choral Pedagogy. He also conducted All-State Choirs in Colorado, Georgia, and West Virginia as well as honor choirs at the regional and
county level. He presented several sessions in Houston at the American Choral Directors Association National Conference on Children and Youth Singing. He cofounded and presented multiple sessions at the first National Symposium on Boychoir in Cincinnati,
also sponsored by ACDA. He also presented a poster at the Music Research and Teacher Education National Conference in Atlanta. He received and attended a Fellowship in Modern Band held at Florida International University. In 2018, in addition to numerous
honor choirs, Denison presented a long paper lecture on his research titled “A Structural Model of Physiological and Psychological Effects on Adolescent Male Singing” at the Symposium on Research in Choral Singing at Northwestern University.
Denison has prepared choirs and acted as vocal coach for numerous international orchestras, opera companies, and a number of world and North American premieres.
Opera productions including The Magic Flute, The Turn of the Screw, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Carmen, La Boheme, Turandot, Tosca, Summer and Smoke, Hansel and Gretel, Amahl and the Night Visitors, Street Scene, and Gloriana, with opera
companies as diverse as Central City Opera to Los Angeles Opera to Florida Grand Opera. He has prepared choirs and soloists for the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, Cleveland Symphony, New World Symphony, Colorado Symphony,
Berlin Philharmonic, and the BBC Proms. His television and movie work includes Dexter and Interview with the Vampire.
Denison earned his PhD in Music Education from the University of Miami. He holds a Master of Music degree with Distinction from Westminster Choir College and a Bachelor of Music degree from Houghton College, magna cum laude. In addition to youth singing,
Denison’s research agenda includes male singing, choral pedagogy, technology, and music teacher identity formation.