About Us
The Duke Chorale is a primarily undergraduate concert choir at Duke University, performing an extensive repertoire of chorale pieces, ranging from Renaissance German and French works to Latin Requiems and Negro spirituals. The Chorale rehearses regularly during the school year and performs half a dozen concerts around central North Carolina and takes a concert tour over spring break each year. Previous spring tours have taken the Chorale across the United States and to many overseas locales, including England, China, Italy, and Puerto Rico. This year the 50-strong group toured up the East Coast, from Miami, Florida, back to Durham, from March 7 through 16. If you're interested in being a part of the Duke Chorale, please schedule an audition.
Rodney Wynkoop is Director of University Choral Music and Director of Chapel Music at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, where he conducts the Duke University Chorale and its 24-voice Chamber Choir as well as the Duke Chapel Choir and its 32-voice Schola Cantorum. Having been at Duke University since 1984 and at Duke Chapel since 1989, Dr. Wynkoop teaches choral conducting in the Music Department, where he holds the title of Professor of the Practice of Music.
Dr. Wynkoop is also Conductor of the 150-voice Choral Society of Durham and its 32-voice Chamber Choir. He is the founder and director of the Vocal Arts Ensemble of Durham, a highly acclaimed select choir. VAE was chosen to sing at the 2005 national convention of the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA) in Los Angeles, as well as two southern division ACDA conventions in 2000 and 2004. The Chapel Choir and the Choral Society of Durham have also performed at southern division ACDA conventions. He has conducted all-state choruses and led choral conducting workshops in various parts of the United States, and during the summer of 1991 he was resident guest conductor of a professional civic chorus in Belo Horizonte, Brazil.
Dr. Wynkoop's work with choruses has earned him high praise for artistic excellence and innovative programming. In 2000, he received the Durham Arts Council's James L. Nicholson award for his contributions in promoting the careers of local singers and composers, and in 2002, he received the Lara Hoggard Award for Distinguished Service in Choral Music in North Carolina, presented by the North Carolina ACDA.
All of the choirs under his direction have released CD recordings, including several CDs with the Duke Chorale, Handel's Messiah with the Duke Chapel Choir, and Orff's Carmina Burana, with the Choral Society of Durham and the Duke Chorale. His most recent recordings, on the Arsis/E.C. Schirmer label, are .My Spirit Sang All Day,. with the Vocal Arts Ensemble of Durham, and the Rutter Requiem and Vierne Solemn Mass, with the Duke Chapel Choir. He has led numerous concert tours, performing in Great Britain, Italy, Poland, the Czech Republic, Austria, Hungary, mainland China, Russia, South Africa, Namibia, and all over the United States.
Dr. Wynkoop earned his doctoral degree in choral conducting at the Yale School of Music. A student of Robert Fountain, he received a Masters degree from the University of Wisconsin, and a Bachelors degree in music from Yale University. Before coming to Duke, he held conducting positions at the University of Chicago, the Yale School of Music/Institute of Sacred Music, and Mount Holyoke College.