Dr. David Scholz

Dr. David Scholz was appointed as the Director of Choral Activities at California State University, Chico in Fall 2007. He currently serves as Music Division Head of the Department of Music and Theatre, directs the Acappella Choir and Chamber Singers, and oversees the vocal program. He has taught various classes at the university, including Studio Voice, School Vocal Techniques, Beginning Voice Class, Aural Musicianship I and II, Music Theory I, II, III, and IV, Advanced Choral Conducting, and the general education class Great Composers and Compositions. In addition to his teaching responsibilities, Dr. Scholz oversees the Chico Bach Festival, the Centennial Organ Recital Series, and coordinates the Glorious Sounds of the Season concerts, which raise over $20,000 each year for music department scholarships. He has served two terms as a faculty senator, sat for two years on the Student Evaluation of Teaching Committee, serves as chair of the department’s Retention, Tenure, and Promotion Committee, serves as MUTA’s representative on the College of Humanities and Fine Arts Scholarship Committee, and was for three years a member of the Instructionally Related Activities Advisory Board. Dr. Scholz holds a Bachelor of Music degree in Vocal Music Education from St. Olaf College (1994), a Master of Music degree in Choral Conducting from Michigan State University (1999), and a Doctorate of Musical Arts in Conducting from the University of Minnesota (2006).

Prior to his appointment to CSU Chico, Dr. Scholz was the Interim Director of Choral Activities at the University of Texas at Tyler. He has directed choral programs at high schools in Minnesota and Florida, led numerous children’s choirs and community choruses, and served in the music ministry of churches in Michigan, Minnesota and Texas. He is currently the director of the Chancel Choir at Bidwell Presbyterian Church. In the fall of 2010, Scholz founded the North Valley Chamber Chorale, a non-profit auditioned community choir of approximately 50 members which performs regularly in Chico.

Dr. Scholz sat on the board of the California American Choral Directors Association from 2011-2015 as the editor of the tri-annual journal, Cantate, which in 2013 was awarded first place in the national American Choral Directors Association newsletter competition for large budget print newsletters. He has also served as editor of The Star of the North, the state journal of the Minnesota chapter of ACDA. Under his editorship, the journal was awarded first place from the American Choral Directors Association for large state membership journals. Scholz was named Young Conductor of the Year by the Minnesota ACDA in 2003.

Dr. Scholz was a member of the Bach Festival Choir in Eugene, Oregon, from 2006-2014 and has performed as a soloist with various choral ensembles in such works as Orff’s Carmina Burana, Haydn’s Nicolaimesse, Charpentier’s Te Deum, and Bach’s cantata Christ lag in Todes Banden. Dr. Scholz maintains an active schedule as a clinician, adjudicator, guest conductor and soloist in northern California and is a contributing author to the GIA publication Teaching Music through Performance in Choir, Volumes II, III and IV. He is a member of the American Choral Directors Association, the National Collegiate Choral Organization, Music Educators National Conference, California Music Educators Association, Pi Kappa Lambda, and Phi Kappa Phi. He and his wife Dara, a professional singer and vocal instructor, reside in Chico, CA with their son, Luka.