Musical Direction

DR. REED CRIDDLE

Director

Dr. Reed Criddle is Visiting Professor of Choral Music and Interim Associate Director of Choirs at the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor, where he conducts the University Choir, Michigan Youth Chamber Singers, and the 100-voiced University of Michigan Men's Glee Club, now in its 165th season. From 2008-2010, he served as the assistant conductor of the UMMGC, with whom he gave his American Choral Directors Association conducting debut at the 2010 Midwestern Region Conference in Cincinnati, Ohio. 

Dr. Criddle is additionally in his 15th year as Professor of Music and Director of Choral Activities at Utah Valley University, where he conducts the Chamber Choir and Deep Green (tenor-bass choir) and teaches conducting, lyric diction, and voice. He is twice recipient of the UVU Faculty Senate Teaching Excellence Award and winner of the School of the Arts Dean's Award for exemplary faculty scholarly and creative work. He has conducted the acclaimed UVU Chamber Choir at national conferences of the American Choral Directors Association (2023) and the National Collegiate Choral Organization (2013, 2017), as well as over a dozen divisional and state conferences of ACDA and the National Association for Music Education. In addition to his ongoing service as a guest conductor, clinician, and adjudicator for school and community ensembles, Dr. Criddle has served as president of the Utah chapter of ACDA. He previously taught music courses at the University of California-Berkeley Young Musicians Program, University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, MI), Eastman Community Music School (Rochester, NY), and Willow Oaks Elementary School (Menlo Park, CA). 

During spring semester 2025, Dr. Criddle will be a Visiting Professor and guest conductor at Maastricht Conservatoire in the Netherlands. In summer 2024, he was guest conductor of the Cathedral Voices and Jackson Hole Symphony Orchestra (Wyoming) for Beethoven's Choral Fantasy and guest conductor/lecturer on his arrangements of Chinese folk songs at Furen Catholic University (Taipei, Taiwan), Nanjing University of the Arts, Nanjing Xiaozhuang University, Yangzhou Vocational University, and Jinzhong University in China. In July 2024, Criddle made his Weiwuying National Concert Hall conducting debut as the conductor of the Formosa Taiwan Youth Honor Choir.

He has additionally recently guest-lectured at Oxford University (UK), Hochschüle für Musik Franz Liszt Weimar (Germany), Westminster Choir College (New Jersey), California State University (Los Angeles), Louisiana State University, Eastern Arizona College, Arizona State University, Taipei University of the Arts (Taiwan), Foguangshan Buddhist College (Taiwan), Fudan University (Shanghai, China), Beijing Chemical Techology University (China), and the Technical University of Kenya. 

Named a U.S. Fulbright Senior Scholar to Taiwan in 2018, Dr. Criddle is an ardent advocate for multiculturalism and a foremost ethnomusicologist of Chinese Buddhist chant. Fluent in Mandarin Chinese, Dr. Criddle is editor of Chanting the Medicine Buddha Sutra: A Musical Transcription and English Translation of the Liberation Rite of Water and Land at Fo Guang Shan Monastery (AR Editions: Middleton, Wisconsin). This unprecedented ethnography and translation of Chinese Buddhist liturgy was named a finalist for the American Musicological Society’s 2021 Claude V. Palisca Award.

His compositions and arrangements span a wide range of sacred and secular topics and are available through Earthsongs, Hal Leonard, NorthStar Music, and Santa Barbara Music Publishing. In recognition of his compositional achievements, he was awarded the UVU Presidential Fellowship to commission John Muir in Utah, a piano concerto, for the opening season of the UVU Noorda Center for the Performing Arts. His compositions have been performed worldwide by a large variety of ensembles, such as  Musikhochschüle Lübeck Kammerchor (Germany), Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt Weimar (Germany), Beijing Queer Chorus (China), Hollywood Master Chorale (California), National University of Singapore International Festival Chorus, Piedmont East Bay Children's Chorus (California), Chinese University of Hong Kong Chorus, Auckland Welsh Choir (New Zealand), and Dallas Street Choir (Texas).

Dr. Criddle completed a Doctorate of Musical Arts in Conducting at the University of Michigan and Masters of Music in Choral Conducting at the Eastman School of Music. At Stanford University, he received a Masters of Arts in East Asian Studies and Bachelors of Arts in Vocal Performance and Chinese. His conducting mentors include Jerry Blackstone, Paul Rardin, William Weinert, Stephen Sano, Helmuth Rilling, Joseph Piazza, and Robert Geary. 

Benjamin Gaughran

Assistant Conductor

For over two decades, British-Caribbean conductor Benjamin Gaughran (pronounced [gɔk-rən]) has demonstrated his versatility as a conductor, pianist, singer, and educator. His career spans diverse settings, including leadership of children, youth, community, church, semi-professional, and professional choirs, as well as musical theatre companies and orchestras.

At the University of Michigan (U-M), Benjamin holds many conducting roles in the choral area. He is the Associate Conductor of The Orpheus Singers and Assistant Conductor for both The Chamber Choir and The U-M Men’s Glee Club. He has also served as Opera Chorus Master for the Department of Voice & Opera, and conductor of The Arts Chorale and The U-M Women’s Glee Club. Later this season, he will assume the role of Conductor for the University Choir at U-M.

Outside academia, Benjamin is deeply involved in the Ann Arbor music community. He is the Music Director of the Women’s Chamber Chorus, Director of Music at The First Congregational Church, and Chorus Director for the Lima Symphony Orchestra Chorus. His work with a prison outreach choir and youth chamber ensembles highlights his commitment to making music accessible to all.

An accomplished educator, Benjamin regularly serves as a guest clinician in Michigan schools and as an adjudicator at Choral Festivals. He holds degrees from Royal Holloway, University of London, The University of Nottingham, Canterbury Christchurch University, The Royal Schools of Music and U-M, where he is in the final year of his Doctor of Musical Arts degree in choral conducting under Dr. Eugene Rogers.

For more information or to contact Benjamin, visit: http://www.benjamingaughran.com