RODNEY WYNKOOP, founder and director of the Vocal Arts Ensemble of Durham, is also Director of University Choral Music and Director of Chapel Music at Duke University. He conducts the Duke University Chorale and its 24-voice Chamber Choir as well as the Duke Chapel Choir and its smaller Schola Cantorum. He teaches choral conducting in the Music Department, and holds the title of Professor of the Practice of Music.

In addition to his choirs at Duke, Dr. Wynkoop is Conductor of the 150-voice Choral Society of Durham and its 32-voice Chamber Choir. Besides VAE, two of his other choirs-- the Choral Society of Durham and the Duke Chapel Choir--have performed at Southern Division ACDA Conventions. He has led choral conducting workshops in various parts of the U.S., and has served as resident guest conductor of a professional civic chorus in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. He has gained critical acclaim for artistic excellence and innovative programming, and is a past winner of the Lara Hoggard Award for Distinguished Service in Choral Music by the North Carolina ACDA.

Dr. Wynkoop has led choir tours to Brazil, South Africa, Namibia, Russia, mainland China, Great Britain, Italy, Poland, the Czech Republic, Austria, and Hungary, as well as locations throughout the U.S. He conducted singers from all of his choirs in a Carnegie Hall performance of Vaughan Williams’ Dona nobis pacem in 2006. In 2009 he will take his singers to Vienna to perform Haydn’s Mass in Time of War and Vaughan Williams’ Dona nobis pacem as part of the International Haydn Festival.

Choirs under his direction have released numerous CD recordings, including two commercial recordings on the Arsis/E.C. Schirmer label: John Rutter’s Requiem and Vierne’s Solemn Mass, with the Duke Chapel Choir, and “My Spirit Sang All Day,” with the Vocal Arts Ensemble of Durham. Other CD recordings include two versions of Handel’s Messiah, Orff’s Carmina Burana, and the Rachmaninoff Vespers. He has conducted the world premieres of many choral works, including music by Mendelssohn, Ives, Sidney Boquiren, and Duke Chapel Organist David Arcus, as well as works commissioned for his choirs from Daniel Gawthrop, Steven Sametz, and Imant Raminsh.

Dr. Wynkoop earned his doctoral degree in choral conducting at the Yale School of Music. A student of Robert Fountain, he received a master’s degree from the University of Wisconsin and a bachelor’s degree in music from Yale University. Before coming to Duke in 1984, he held conducting positions at the University of Chicago, Yale School of Music/Institute of Sacred Music, and Mount Holyoke College. He lives in Durham, North Carolina, with his wife, Leigh, and their twin boys, Andrew and Paul.