Performing “Welkinharmonie” at the Church of the Epiphany, Washington, DC

Douglas Buchanan, performer

Uniting a “sense of creative imperative” (The Philadelphia Inquirer) with the “ability to get under the skin of [the music’s] core material,” (The Scotsman), Douglas Buchanan cultivates cross-disciplinary careers as performer, conductor, educator, and composer. Based in Baltimore, Maryland, he teaches as composition faculty at Dickinson College, music theory and musicology faculty at the Peabody Conservatory, and serves as Artistic Director of the Maryland Choral Society and Choirmaster and Organist at St. David’s Episcopal Church.  

As an organist, Buchanan specializes in new music, Baroque repertoire, and improvisation. He recently performed his completion of J.S. Bach’s Die Kunst der Fuge at both the Baltimore Bach Marathon and the Washington, D.C. Bach Marathon, and has been a featured organ recitalist at the First Presbyterian Church of Dallas, the Church of the Epiphany (D.C.) Concert Series, Reid Memorial Presbyterian Church in Augusta, Georgia, and at the Washington National Cathedral. As pianist, he performed a tour of the East Coast, Midwest, and Southwest of his virtuosic piano cycle Colonnades, a recipient of a Morton Gould Young Composers Award and funded by a grant from the Presser Foundation. He has performed lecture-recitals at meetings of the College Music Society, the Ecomusicologies conference, and at SUNY Fredonia, among others.

Before his appointment to St. David’s, he served as Organist and Director of Music at Old St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, where he conducted the St. Paul’s Choir of Men and Boys, the second oldest choir of its kind in the nation during his tenure. Prior to that, he served as Organist and Director of Music at St. Mark’s-on-the-Hill Episcopal Church. He has conducted the opening performance of the American Choral Director’s Eastern Division Conference, and has been named three times as Music Director for the annual convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland. In demand as a clinician, he has led workshops for ACDA Voices Unites, the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland, and the Baltimore Choral Arts Society, and was recognized by the American Prize for his choral conducting.

As a choral conductor, Buchanan elicits “assured, nuanced singing” from the ensembles he leads. Through his programming he particularly supports emerging composers, and advocates for an increasingly diverse body of repertoire through commissioning and recording. Through a Dean’s Incentive Grant from the Peabody Conservatory, he and his brother founded Voices Rise: A Baltimore Choir of Hope, a choir particularly inviting to those experiencing homelessness and financial distress.

Recognized for composing “clear, personal music” that is “filled with terrific orchestral color and weight, not to mention feeling“ (The Baltimore Sun), Buchanan has been the recipient of the Sackler Prize, grants from New Music USA and from TACA for his residency with the Dallas Chamber Symphony, an ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composers Award, and a Symphony in C Young Composers Award. He is fortunate to have many opportunities to sing with and accompany his wife, Kelly, a mezzo-soprano, and also enjoys microtonal interspecies improvisation with his black lab, Grover.

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