Faculty Daniel BaraDirector of Choral ActivitiesInterim Director, Hugh Hodgson School of MusicConducts: Hodgson Singers, Repertory Singers dbara@uga.edu More information Daniel Bara is the John D. Boyd UGA Foundation Professor of Choral Music and the Director of Choral Activities and Professor of Music at the Hugh Hodgson School of Music at the University of Georgia where he oversees seven university choral ensembles as well as the graduate choral conducting program. His university choirs have performed by juried invitation for state, regional, and national conventions of ACDA, MENC, and IMC. The UGA Hodgson Singers under Bara’s direction won the Grand Prix at the International Choral Competition Ave Verum in Baden, Austria in 2014 and has performed at Southern Division ACDA Conventions in 2014 and 2018 with an invitation to perform in the 2024 conference in Louisville, KY. In May of 2023 the UGA Hodgson Singers won 2nd prize at the prestigious Marktoberdorf International Chamber Choir Competition in Germany, where their performances were categorized as “Excellent on an International Level.” Their 2017 Gothic Records professional recording, Grace Immaculate, is distributed internationally by Naxos. Recent professional collaborations between Bara and the UGA Hodgson Singers include performances with Kathleen Battle, Andrew Bocelli, The Knights Chamber Orchestra, internationally acclaimed vocal sextet The King’s Singers with whom they premiered a jointly commissioned piece by Nico Muhly in 2018, the acclaimed British professional choir. Tenebrae, and the Atlanta Baroque Orchestra. Prior to his appointment at UGA, Dr. Bara was the Director of Choral Activities at East Carolina University, where he received the UNC Board of Governors Distinguished Professor for Teaching Award and the Robert L. Jones Award for Outstanding Teaching, and released two internationally distributed choral recordings, Greater Love (2007) and Eternal Light (2010) with Gothic Records. In 2001 he won the Walter Hagen Conducting Prize given at the Eastman School of Music, and the ACDA National Student Conducting Competition (Graduate Division) awarded at the National Convention in San Antonio, TX. Dr. Bara is in regular demand as a guest conductor and clinician, having conducted all-state and honor choirs in 20 states and Carnegie Hall, and has served as clinician for conferences sponsored by NAfME, ACDA, AGO, and other school and church musical organizations. He is a past-president of NC-ACDA, has held the Artistic Directorship of the New York State Summer School of the Arts – School of Choral Studies (2007-2009), and has served as conductor of the World Youth Honor Choir at Interlochen Arts Camp (2004-2006). Dr. Bara holds the DMA degree in conducting from the Eastman School of Music, organ and conducting degrees from the University of Michigan, and is a graduate of Interlochen Arts Academy. At UGA, Dr. Bara conducts the UGA Hodgson Singers, and oversees the graduate conducting student recital choir, The Repertory Singers. Colin MannAssociate Director of Choral ActivitiesConducts: Georgia Treble Choir, UGA Glee Club, University Chorus, Choral Project Dr. Colin Mann is Assistant Professor of Music and Associate Director of Choral Activities at the Hugh Hodgson School of Music at the University of Georgia. Dr. Mann conducts the Georgia Treble Choir, Glee Club, University Chorus, and Choral Project as well as teaches graduate choral literature and advises graduate conducting students. In May of 2025, Dr. Mann led the Nazareth Treble Choir in a choral tour to Poland where students performed at national festivals in Kraków and collaborated with choirs at the University of Rzeszów. Mann’s current scholarship focuses on national singing trends and new choral music in the Baltic states. His research has been buoyed by contemporary Lithuanian composers, conductors, and professional vocal ensembles like the Vilnius Municipal Choir Jauna Muzika. He has conducted several choral-orchestral works including Poulenc Gloria, Mozart Vesperae solennes de confessore, Duruflé Requiem, Haydn Lord Nelson Mass, Finzi In terra pax, and he has helped prepare Beethoven Missa Solemnis and Vaughan Williams Dona Nobis Pacem with the Eastman-Rochester Chorus and Eastman Philharmonia. As chorus master and conductor of the Viva Bach Peterborough Festival in New Hampshire since 2022, Mann has conducted over ten cantatas and three motets with instruments. In 2019, Mann traveled to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to perform Bach St. Matthew Passion with the Malaysia Bach Festival. As a guest clinician, Dr. Mann has been invited to work with singers of all ages. He has conducted workshops and masterclasses with students from California, Massachusetts, and New York and with many student chapters of the American Choral Directors Association. Recently, he conducted the Albany and Saratoga Springs All-County festivals and the Fredonia Collegiate Choral Festival. Dr. Mann holds the BM degree in music education and voice performance from the State University of New York at Fredonia; the MM degree in conducting with an advanced certificate in community music teaching from the Eastman School of Music; and the DMA degree in conducting from the Eastman School of Music. Prior to his appointment at the University of Georgia, Dr. Mann served on the faculties of the University of Rochester, Nazareth University, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, and the Williston Northampton School. Daniel Emerson ShaferInstructor of Conducting Daniel.Shafer@uga.edu Daniel Shafer is a visting instructor of undergraduate conducting, and co-teaches graduate conducting students in Repertory Singers. He also serves as the Director of Music at Ashford Memorial Methodist Church in Watkinsville, GA. Before moving to Athens, GA, Daniel earned his M.M. in Choral Conducting from the University of Missouri-Columbia and his B.M.E. from Florida State University. After completing his undergraduate degree, he became the Director of Choirs at Westminster Christian School in Miami, FL, where he organized choral tours to London, Hawaii, Grand Cayman Islands, Walt Disney World, and Nashville. Daniel is currently a DMA candidate in Choral Conducting at the University of Georgia. Daniel maintains an active performance schedule having performed in productions of A Little Night Music, Don Giovanni, and Le Portrait de Manon. He has also sung with Kinnara, Alarm Will Sound in collaboration with Meredith Monk, the Missouri Symphony Orchestra, the University of Georgia University Chorus, the University of Georgia Hodgson Singers, and the Festival Singers of Florida. Daniel lives in Athens, GA, with his wife, Meghan, and their dog, Harry Truman. Gregory BroughtonAssociate Professor of Music, VoiceConducts: African American Choral Ensemble gbrought@uga.edu More information Dr. Gregory S. Broughton, Associate Professor of Music, was awarded the General Sandy H. Beaver Teaching Professorship in 2011. He was appointed to the Hugh Hodgson School of Music faculty in 1988. He is a member of the UGA Teaching Academy, a UGA Senior Faculty Teaching Fellow and a recipient of the UGA Sarah Moss Fellowship. He received both the Doctor of Musical Arts and the Master of Music in Vocal Performance from the University of Michigan. He earned the Bachelor of Science in Education from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville where his concentration was in voice and choral music. Broughton's distinguished teachers and coaches include Lorna Haywood, Willis Patterson, George Bitzas, Thomas Williams, Marvalene C. Moore, Donald Neuen, Martin Katz, Timothy Cheek, Mitchell Krieger and Dale Mann. He has made solo appearances under the baton of conductors Yoel Levi, Donald Neuen, Gustav Meier, John DeMain, J. Paul Cobbs and Jacqueline Hairston. Notable solo engagements have included the world premieres of Stephen Newby's Symphony: Let Thy Mercy Be Upon Us with the Seattle Symphony; Ja Jahannes and Steven Newby’s Montage for Martin with members of the Savannah Symphony; the Michigan premiere of David Baker’s Through This Vale of Tears with the Lafayette String Quartet; and the Michigan and Ohio premiere of Adolphus Hailstork's oratorio Done Made My Vow with the Toledo Symphony. He was tenor soloist for the Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 with the Memphis Symphony and he made his debut appearance at Carnegie Hall as guest soloist in a celebration of the African American Spiritual under the baton of Jacqueline Hairston. Additional performances include Haydn's The Creation with the Washington Masterworks Chorale and Orchestra, Mendelssohn's Elijah with the Pensacola Choral Society, Handel's Judas Maccabeaus, Britten's St. Nicolas Mass and Handel's Messiah and numerous other engagements as soloist with musical organizations throughout the United States. As a recitalist he has an affinity for the interpretation of the African American Spiritual. He has appeared twice at the American Listz Society Conference and most recently in San Francisco in a lecture recital presentation with colleague Dr. Richard Zimdars performing lesser-known works of Felix Weingartner. Dr. Broughton's discography includes Montage for Martin with members of the Seattle Symphony; The Lily of the Valley with the American Spiritual Ensemble; Love Letters, a compilation CD of original works by UGA composer Roger Vogel and he appears on the original soundtrack for the musical Yes, Lord! by Ja Jahannes. Broughton also has a modest list of operatic engagements with the Mid-Michigan Opera, Onyx Opera/Atlanta and Chautauqua Opera. He has performed leading tenor roles in Puccini's La Rondine, Verdi's Falstaff and La Traviata, Mozart's Cosi fan tutte, William Grant Still's A Bayou Legend and Scott Joplin's Treemonisha. Broughton's duties include graduate and undergraduate applied voice instruction and graduate academic advising for vocal music majors. His duties also include conducting the University of Georgia African American Choral Ensemble. This student organization's mission is the performance of works composed and/or arranged by African American composers. Following many triumphal performance successes, the group has been invited to perform at several national music conferences. In 2011 the group was invited to perform for the Georgia Music Educators Conference World Music Session in Savannah, GA. In 2013 they were engaged and perform as part of the Smithsonian Institute’s “Southern Harmonies” Traveling Exhibition. The most recent conference presentation was the opening concert for the Organization of American Kodaly Educators in 2014 convening in Atlanta, GA. Currently, Broughton has students performing in major professional venues throughout the United States and abroad in major opera houses, musical theater on and off Broadway. A significant number of students from the private studio as well as from the African American Choral Ensemble are recording contemporary Christian and numerous popular music styles. Quite a large number of his students are currently college and university professors, secondary school educators and private voice teachers. Broughton is a much sought after and effective teacher for pre and post collegiate singers. His expertise is also sought after as clinician and adjudicator for vocal master classes, choral clinics, workshops and competitions.
