Dr. William Jon Gray is Director of Choral Studies at the University at Albany. He comes to the University at Albany from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, where he held the position of chair of the choral department, and where he conducted the Pro Arte Singers, the University’s prestigious chamber choir, and taught graduate-level conducting, choral literature, and score study. Since 2010 he has been chorus director of Chicago’s Music of the Baroque, conducting the fully professional chamber chorus in subscription series concerts and preparing the ensemble for performances with internationally renowned conductors Jane Glover and Nicholas Kraemer. He has been associate conductor of the Carmel Bach Festival in California, leading major choral and orchestral works and preparing performances with conductor Bruno Weil. He has also been assistant conductor of Boston’s Handel and Haydn Society.
Dr. Gray has made guest appearances with orchestras and choruses at festivals around the United States, including the Handel and Haydn Society, Princeton Festival, National Chamber Orchestra, Billings Symphony, and the Lafayette Symphony. In August of 2010 and 2012 he prepared the professional Grant Park Music Festival Chorus for performances of Dvořák’s Requiem and The Spectre’s Bride and Haydn’s The Seasons in collaboration with Carlos Kalmar. He has prepared choruses for the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra and the National Chamber Orchestra, and has served as faculty director of opera choruses for the Indiana University Opera Theatre, collaborating with such notable stage directors as Tito Capobianco (La Traviata), Colin Graham (Peter Grimes), Vincent Liotta (A View from the Bridge), and Tomer Zvulun (Faust).
He was artistic director of the Masterworks Chorus and Orchestra of Washington, DC, from 1986 to 1993, and artistic director of the Bach Chorale Singers from 1994 to 2010, conducting more than 100 performances of major choral works. With the Bach Chorale Singers, he received national critical acclaim for the commercially released recording, “In Praise of the Organ: Latin Choral and Organ Music of Zoltán Kodály.” Recent conducting appearances include Handel’s Esther in Charleston with the Pro Arte Singers and Baroque Orchestra, Haydn’s The Creation in Indianapolis and Bloomington, and Mendelssohn’s Elijah with Metropolitan Opera baritone Timothy Noble and mezzo-soprano Marietta Simpson.
Recent performances include “How Can I Keep from Singing”, a syncretic concept program which juxtaposed repertoire from the classical, vocal jazz, musical theatre, spiritual, and folk genres performed by the University at Albany Chamber Singers and University-Community Chorale. With Chicago’s professional Music of the Baroque Orchestra and Chorus, he conducted the popular Holiday Brass and Choral concerts, Allegri’s Miserere, Palestrina’s Missa Papae Marcelli, and Monteverdi’s Madrigali Libro VIII, as well as preparing Bach’s Weihnachts Oratorium, Mozart’s Requiem, Haydn’s Te Deum für die Keiserin, Handel’s Dettingen Te Deum, and Haydn’s Mass in Time of War in collaboration with conductors Jane Glover and Nicholas Kraemer.
Dr. Gray studied at Indiana University, the Juilliard School, New England Conservatory, and Boston University. He performed frequently with Robert Shaw as a member of the Robert Shaw Festival Singers, both in recordings and concerts in France and at Carnegie Hall.