Dr. Galen Darrough is Professor Emeritus at the University of Northern Colorado, and has directed, adjudicated, and served as clinician to choirs in 24 states, the provinces of Manitoba, Nova Scotia, and Ontario in Canada, and in Latin America. He has served as all-state honor choir director in North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Tennessee, California and twice in Oklahoma. His broad experience in choral music includes public school teaching at the junior and senior high school, community college, university, and community levels. Under his direction, the University of Northern Colorado Concert Choir was one of 12 choirs throughout the US to perform for the National Collegiate Choral Organization biennial national conference. His UNC Men’s Glee Club was selected to perform for the 1996 and 2006 Southwestern Division conventions of the American Choral Directors Association in Dallas, Texas, and for the 1997 and 2006 Colorado Music Educators Convention.
At UNC, he conducted the select Concert Choir and Men’s Glee Club, taught graduate choral music coursework and supervised dissertation projects. In 2003 he was granted sabbatical leave to Stockholm to study Swedish male chorus repertoire and in the Spring of 2011 was given his second sabbatical, studying the choral music of Latin America. He has served in numerous capacities in the American Choral Director’s Association, including Colorado State President, and President for the 2008-10 term for the seven-state Southwestern Division of ACDA. In the Fall of 1999, he was designated the Scholar of the Year for the College of Performing and Visual Arts at UNC, one of eight faculty members to be awarded throughout the university. In March of 2010, he received the Douglas R. McEwen Award for Choral Excellence from Arizona State University, given to him “in recognition of his outstanding artistry, dedication to choral music and commitment to singers”. He was recently honored with the 2021 Legacy Award from the Colorado Chapter of the American Choral Director’s Association.