Daniel Bara

Daniel Bara is the Interim Director of Hugh Hodgson School of Music and serves as the John D. Boyd UGA Foundation Professor of Choral Music and the Director of Choral Activities and Professor of Music at the Hugh Hodgson School of Music at the University of Georgia where oversees seven university choral ensembles as well as the graduate choral conducting program. His university choirs have performed by juried invitation for state, regional, and national conventions of ACDA, MENC, and IMC. 

The UGA Hodgson Singers under Bara’s direction won the Grand Prix at the International Choral Competition Ave Verum in Baden, Austria in 2014 and has performed at Southern Division ACDA Conventions in 2014 and 2018 with an invitation to perform in the 2024 conference in Louisville, KY. In May of 2023 the UGA Hodgson Singers won 2^nd prize at the prestigious Marktoberdorf International Chamber Choir Competition in Germany, where their performances were categorized as “Excellent on an International Level.” Their 2017 Gothic Records professional recording, Grace Immaculate, is distributed internationally by Naxos. Recent professional collaborations between Bara and the UGA Hodgson Singers include performances with Kathleen Battle, Andrew Bocelli, The Knights Chamber Orchestra, internationally acclaimed vocal sextet The King’s Singers with whom they premiered a jointly commissioned piece by Nico Muhly in 2018, the acclaimed British professional choir. Tenebrae, and the Atlanta Baroque Orchestra. 

Prior to his appointment at UGA, Dr. Bara was the Director of Choral Activities at East Carolina University, where he received the UNC Board of Governors Distinguished Professor for Teaching Award and the Robert L. Jones Award for Outstanding Teaching, and released two internationally distributed choral recordings, Greater Love (2007) and Eternal Light (2010) with Gothic Records.   In 2001 he won the Walter Hagen Conducting Prize given at the Eastman School of Music, and the ACDA National Student Conducting Competition (Graduate Division) awarded at the National Convention in San Antonio, TX.  

Dr. Bara is in regular demand as a guest conductor and clinician, having conducted all-state and honor choirs in 20 states and Carnegie Hall, and has served as clinician for conferences sponsored by NAfME, ACDA, AGO, and other school and church musical organizations.  He is a past-president of NC-ACDA, has held the Artistic Directorship of the New York State Summer School of the Arts – School of Choral Studies (2007-2009), and has served as conductor of the World Youth Honor Choir at Interlochen Arts Camp (2004-2006).  

Dr. Bara holds the DMA degree in conducting from the Eastman School of Music, organ and conducting degrees from the University of Michigan, and is a graduate of Interlochen Arts Academy.   At UGA, Dr. Bara conducts the UGA Hodgson Singers, and oversees the graduate conducting student recital choir, The Repertory Singers.