Prof. Thomas Colohan

Prof. Thomas Colohan is pleased to be joining the Dewberry School of Music adjunct choral faculty, effective Fall 2024 semester. Artistic Director of the Washington Master Chorale, is an award-winning conductor, composer, and teacher. The Washington Post has acclaimed Colohan's work with the Master Chorale as "skillfully wrought and moving." He has led choruses at Carnegie Hall, The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington National Cathedral, The Library of Congress, Prague's Rudolphinum Concert Hall, and the Stephansdom in Vienna. Colohan is active as a guest conductor, teacher, and clinician on both the East and West Coasts, and for served 6 years as Artist-in-Residence at the distinguished Walden School Creative Musicians Retreat in Dublin, N.H. He has received a number of well-regarded choral commissions from churches and schools including St. Luke Catholic Church in McLean, Va., and the Montgomery County Public Schools. In his choral/orchestral engagements he has conducted members of the Prague Radio Symphony, the National Symphony Orchestra, the San Jose Symphony, the California Chamber Symphony, and the Richmond Symphony. Colohan has earned numerous honors, including regular recognition from the National Endowment for the Arts and the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities. He has twice been the recipient of a Choralis Foundation Washington Area Choral Excellence Award.

Before coming to the Washington, D.C., area, Colohan served as Director of Choral Activities at Santa Clara University in Santa Clara, Calif., Music Director of the Santa Clara Chorale, and Founder and Artistic Director of the James River Singers in Richmond, Va. His teachers have included renowned choral musicians such as Robert Shaw, Dale Warland, Morten Lauridsen, Helmuth Rilling, Donald McCullough, and William Dehning. Colohan has held the post of Music Director for a number of well-known churches, including All Souls Church, Unitarian, in Washington, D.C., St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Palo Alto, Calif., and Little River United Church of Christ in Annandale, Va. A lyric baritone who maintains an active voice studio, Mr. Colohan has sung professionally with the Washington Bach Consort and on Public Television Great Performances series at the Kennedy Center with the Washington Opera Chorus. He holds a Master of Music in Choral Music from the University of Southern California and a Bachelor of Music in Voice Performance from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music.

Degrees:

• BM, Vocal Performance, Oberlin Conservatory of Music
• MM, Choral Music, University of Southern California