Reed Criddle
Visiting Professor and Interim Associate Director of Choral Activities
Bio
Dr. Reed Criddle is a Visiting Professor and Interim Associate Director of Choral Activities at the University of Michigan for fall semester 2024. In this role, he will be conductor of the University of Michigan Men’s Glee Club (UMMGC), University Choir, and Michigan Youth Chamber Singers, in addition to an instructor of graduate conducting. From 2008-2010, he served as the assistant conductor of the UMMGC, with whom he gave his ACDA conducting debut at the 2010 Midwestern Region Conference in Cincinnati, Ohio. 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.
Dr. Criddle is additionally 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 (2013, 2020) and winner of the 2021 School of the Arts Dean’s Award for exemplary faculty scholarly and creative work.
Named a U.S. Fulbright Senior Scholar to Taiwan in 2018, Dr. Criddle has directed ensembles, conducted research, and led workshops throughout Asia, Europe, Africa, Cuba, and the United States. He has also 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.
An ardent advocate for multiculturalism and a foremost ethnomusicologist of Chinese Buddhist chant. His compositions and arrangements span a wide range of sacred and secular topics, including Buddhism and Chinese folksongs, are available through Earthsongs, Hal Leonard, NorthStar Music, and Santa Barbara Music Publishing.
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.
He has 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.
