JEFF BUETTNER
Choir Conductor

MIddlebury College; Vermont Youth Orchestra Association; Fulbright Scholar

Jeffrey Buettner, DMA is Assistant Professor of Music at Middlebury College, where he directs the choral program and conducts College Choir and Men’s Glee Club. He is conductor of the Vermont Youth Orchestra Chorus and Concert Chorale, and President-Elect of the Vermont chapter of the American Choral Directors Association.

Professor Buettner is a Fulbright scholar fall of 2010 to the I. Kotlyarevski Kharkov State University of Arts in Kharkov, Ukraine where he will teach American choral music and tradition, and conducting. He is also a recipient of a Whiting Foundation grant to study 16th and 17th century counterpoint in Leipzig and London.

He was selected to conduct at the Philadelphia Bach Institute with Helmut Riling in February, 2010. In summer 2009 he served as Artistic Director of “Heritage in Harmony,” a cultural exchange program for high school students from Vermont, Quebec and France. In summer of 2008 he was choral conductor for the Rome Festival in Rome, Italy and conducted the Middlebury Opera production of La Bohème by Puccini.

At Middlebury, Jeffrey Buettner directs a choral program that includes three auditioned student ensembles in addition to a college and community chorus. Dr. Buettner teaches musicianship, fundamental music theory, arranging, and his own course “Everything A Cappella,” in which students study the history of Western European and American music traditions through the repertoire and presentation of a cappella ensembles and through creative a cappella projects. His recent areas of study and performances include 17th and 18th century European music, ethnic music, soul and funk, and music of Ukrainian Roma (“Gypsy Choirs”).

Buettner has conducted choirs at Earlham, Hope and Simpson Colleges, and prepared opera and oratorio choruses for the Brevard Music Center in North Carolina, Des Moines Metro Opera in Iowa, Richmond Symphony in Indiana and children’s choir for the Cincinnati May Festival in Ohio. He has conducted regional choral festivals in the Midwest and Northeast, including the New Hampshire All-State Chamber Music Festival, Vermont Madrigal Festival and the Vermont Northeast District Music Festival.

His work as an arranger and composer has led to performances by college, community and professional choruses and orchestras, including a performance at a national convention of the American Choral Directors Association. He has presented his research on music of Ukrainian Roma (“Gypsy Choirs”) at College Music Society national and international conferences. An organist, he currently plays at the Congregational Church of Middlebury where he frequently collaborates with area musicians in chamber ensembles.

Jeffrey Buettner received his DMA from Michigan State University, where he also conducted the Collegiate Choir. He received his MM from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and BM from St. Olaf College. He was appointed to the Middlebury faculty in 2007.