Jason DeBord
Associate Professor of Music
On Leave: 01/01/2025 - 02/28/2025
Bio
Jason DeBord was appointed to the Department of Musical Theatre faculty in September 2014 and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2020.
Jason DeBord most recently served as the music supervisor for the 2025 production of Once – The Musical in Seoul, South Korea. He was also the resident music supervisor for the Broadway and world tour productions of the show. His Broadway credits include Shrek, Priscilla: Queen of the Desert, Rock of Ages, Legally Blonde, All Shook Up, and Rent, among others.
In New York, his work includes Bare – The Musical, Fat Camp, Bat Boy – The Musical, the Radio City Christmas Spectacular, The New York Pops at Carnegie Hall, Cathedral of St. John the Divine, City Center Encores!, and numerous developmental productions of new works.
In the summer of 2020, Jason DeBord served as a segment producer for the St. Louis Muny’s Online Variety Hour. He also created new dance, vocal, and song arrangements for the revised version of Lerner & Loewe’s Paint Your Wagon, produced at Seattle’s 5th Avenue Theatre, the Ordway Theatre in St. Paul, and the St. Louis Muny.
DeBord played and conducted the national tours of A Chorus Line, Rent, and Urinetown – The Musical. His playing is prominently featured in the 2009 Sony Pictures Classics documentary Every Little Step, and he has performed on multiple recordings for stage, film, and television. Regionally, he has worked as a pianist and music director at the Old Globe Theatre, La Jolla Playhouse, A.C.T., the Alliance Theatre, the St. Louis Muny, and the 5th Avenue Theatre.
From 1993 to 1994, DeBord served as an accompanist for the Vocal Music Department at the University of San Diego. He has also taught at the McCarter Theatre, San Diego Junior Theatre, and the American Theatre Wing’s Springboard program. He has been a guest artist in the theatre department at the University of Colorado, Boulder on multiple occasions and has provided private vocal and piano coaching, audition training, and master classes throughout his career.
From 2016 to 2019, he was the music director for Music Academy International’s summer musical theatre intensive in Mezzano, Trentino-Alto Adige, Italy. In 2019, he collaborated with Catherine A. Walker on the design of the SMTD minor in Musical Theatre Composition, a contribution he was especially proud to share credit for.
DeBord recently completed arrangements for composer Nick Spear’s theatrical cantata, Extraction to Extinction, with orchestration by Olivier Award-winner August Eriksmoen (Come From Away, Bright Star). The piece weaves together a full orchestra, six-piece electric band, and actor-singers to explore the impact of natural resource industries on rural communities in the American West and beyond.
