Robert Bode, Professor of Music
Hall of Music 115
boderh@whitman.edu

Robert Bode received his doctorate in Choral Conducting from the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music in Cincinnati, Ohio. Prior to attending the Cincinnati Conservatory, Dr. Bode won a conducting scholarship to the prestigious Aspen Music Festival, where he studied Opera Conducting with Fiora Contino.

In 1982, Bode studied in Wales as a Conducting Fellow at the University-College of Music in Cardiff. Bode made his Carnegie Hall conducting debut in 1990, conducting the Walla Walla Symphony Chorale in the New York premiere of The Waking by John David Earnest.

Dr. Bode is Head of Choral/Vocal Studies and a Professor of Music at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington, where he has been on the faculty since 1986. In 2000, he was named the first recipient of the Alma Meisnest Endowed Chair in the Humanities and Fine Arts at Whitman College.

His choirs have been featured in performances for the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA) Division Conventions in 1990, 1992 and 1994. In March of 1995, Dr. Bode conducted the Walla Walla Mastersingers in performances for the ACDA National Convention at Kennedy Center and Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C.

In March of 1997, Bode conducted a series of televised concerts with the Yunnan Provicial Chorus in Kunming, China. In February of 2000, he prepared the chorus of the National Opera of Mongolia for the first English-language production of Porgy and Bess in Ulaan Bataar, Mongolia.

An active orchestral conductor, Robert Bode is Music Director of the Mid-Columbia Symphony in Richland, Washington. In the summer of 1993, he won the Conducting Prize at the Symphonic Workshop International Competition for conductors in Hradec and Morovice, Czech Republic. Subsequently, he was appointed to a three-month residency with the Bohuslav Martinu Philharmonic in Zlin, Czech Republic.

Bode is the Music Director for Zephyr Ensemble in Santa Fe, New Mexico and the Composer's Reading Chorus in New York City. He is also the co-founder of the Bluefeather Vocal Workshops held each summer in Pottsboro, Texas and Santa Fe, New Mexico.