David Puderbaugh is Assistant Director of Choral Activities at the University of Iowa, where he conducts University Choir, teaches graduate choral literature and undergraduate choral conducting, and advises D.M.A. theses. He is also Associate Director of the School of Music, overseeing the graduate program. A native Iowan, Dr. Puderbaugh holds a music education degree from Drake University and graduate degrees in choral conducting from the University of Missouri and the University of Iowa. His teachers include Timothy Stalter, David Rayl, and Aimee Beckmann-Collier. Dr. Puderbaugh also is Music Director of Chamber Singers of Iowa City, an ensemble that focuses on major choral works such as Beethoven’s Mass in C Major, Handel’s Messiah, Haydn’s The Seasons, Orff’s Carmina Burana, Rachmaninoff’s All-Night Vigil, as well as a Carnegie Hall performance of Haydn’s Missa Cellensis.
Beyond the university, Dr. Puderbaugh’s research interest centers on Estonian choral music, which began with a Fulbright Fellowship to study that country’s national song festivals during the Soviet occupation. He conducted the Estonian chamber choir Voces Musicales (now Voces Tallinn) in the album A Black Birch in Winter: American and Estonian Choral Music (MSR Classics, 2019), awarded 2019 Recording of the Year by the Estonian Choral Association. In July 2023, he and Voces Tallinn will be headline performers at the College Music Society’s international conference in the Baltics. Dr. Puderbaugh is president of Midwestern ACDA, and has served on the editorial board of ACDA’s Choral Journal. He is an active tenor soloist; recent credits include Handel’s Messiah, Haydn’s The Creation, Mozart’s C-Minor Mass, and the Evangelist role in Bach’s Christmas Oratorio and Schütz’s St. John Passion.