Biography
Dr. Derrick Fox is the Associate Dean of Graduate Studies and Creative Endeavors and Professor of Choral Conducting at Michigan State University. Prior to joining the faculty at MSU, he served as Director of Choral Activities and Distinguished Professor of Music at the University of Nebraska at Omaha and as Assistant Professor of Choral Music at Ithaca College. He holds the Bachelor of Music Education from Arkansas State University, the Master of Music in Choral Conducting from the University of Missouri–Columbia, and the Doctor of Musical Arts in Choral Conducting from Michigan State University. His career has included teaching and conducting at the middle school, high school, collegiate, community, and professional levels, giving him a broad perspective on the development of singers and conductors across educational settings.
An active guest conductor and clinician, Dr. Fox has conducted all-state and honor choirs and has been in residence at universities throughout the United States and abroad. His conducting experiences span singers from upper elementary through collegiate, community, festival, and professional ensembles. He conducted the 2019 National American Choral Directors Association Middle School/Junior High Mixed Honor Choir and was selected as a 2019 ACDA International Conductors Exchange Program Fellow. Through the fellowship, he traveled to South Africa, where he led choral workshops, rehearsals, and educational exchanges in Johannesburg, Pretoria, and Potchefstroom. His international work has also included teaching and conducting engagements in Europe and other locations abroad.
Dr. Fox will return to South Africa in March 2027 as one of four international guest conductors for the Mzanzi Conductors Convention at Cape Town City Hall. Under the convention theme Colour Beyond Boundaries, he will lead an international conducting masterclass alongside guest conductors Darius Lim of Singapore, Carrie Tennant of Canada, and Kenneth Griffith of the United States. The three-day convention brings together conductors, educators, choirs, and choral professionals for masterclasses, presentations, performances, professional development, and international exchange. His return to South Africa represents a continuation of the relationships and artistic exchange that began through his 2019 ACDA International Conductors Exchange Fellowship.
Dr. Fox’s recent conducting engagements also include appearances at Carnegie Hall. In 2023, he led a festival chorus of more than 250 singers from across the United States in performance at Carnegie Hall. In June 2026, he returned as a guest conductor in Manhattan Concert Productions’ Masterwork Series, conducting Elaine Hagenberg’s Illuminare with the New York City Chamber Orchestra and festival chorus. He is scheduled to return to Carnegie Hall in June 2027 to conduct Rosephanye Powell’s The Cry of Jeremiah as part of the Masterwork Series.
Beyond the podium, Dr. Fox leads professional development and organizational change initiatives for music-focused organizations throughout the United States. His work as a clinician and consultant explores the intersections of artistic excellence, pedagogy, leadership, culture, and community. His workshops address assessment in the choral classroom, building classroom community and culture, rehearsal strategies, choral conducting technique, leadership, culturally responsive teaching, and shape-note singing within African American communities. He has served as a keynote speaker, clinician, and presenter for state, regional, national, and international organizations and conferences.
His scholarship is particularly connected to African American musical traditions and the intersection of research, teaching, and performance. His research on African American participation in the seven-shape gospel singing tradition grew from his doctoral studies at Michigan State University and extensive engagement with singing conventions and communities where the tradition continues. His article, “African American Practice of Shape-Note Singing in the United States,” appeared in the Choral Journal, and he continues to bring this research into workshops, performances, and educational settings. His work seeks to illuminate musical traditions that have often existed outside the narratives most frequently represented within university music study and professional choral practice.
As a baritone soloist, Dr. Fox has collaborated with the Arkansas Symphony, Lansing Symphony, St. Louis Symphony, Columbia Chorale, Omaha Symphonic Chorus, University of Missouri, Michigan State University, Webster University, the University of Nebraska at Omaha, and Espaço Cultural in Brasília, Brazil. He can be heard singing selections from Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess on the Naxos Classical Music recording In This Hid Clearing. More recently, he appeared as baritone soloist in Vaughan Williams’ A Sea Symphony with the Michigan State University Symphony Orchestra and Choral Union.
As an author, composer, arranger, and editor, Dr. Fox creates resources that connect artistic excellence with practical pedagogy while working to broaden the repertoire available to singers and teachers. His compositions and arrangements are published by Hal Leonard, MusicSpoke, Hinshaw Music, and Brilee Music. His book, Yes You Can: A Band Director’s Guide to Teaching Choirs, published by Carl Fischer, provides pedagogical strategies for instrumental music educators who find themselves teaching choral ensembles. He has also written articles and educational materials for numerous professional and educational organizations.
Dr. Fox founded The Derrick Fox Choral Series with MusicSpoke to publish and elevate music by and about people whose voices and experiences have historically been marginalized or underrepresented within choral music. He also curates the Foundations in Song Choral Series in partnership with Hinshaw Music, featuring repertoire designed to support specific pedagogical goals while remaining musically substantive and accessible to choirs at a variety of levels. Through these projects, he works to connect composers, conductors, educators, and singers with repertoire that expands both musical skill and understanding.
Dr. Fox has cultivated educational partnerships with numerous musical organizations, including Hal Leonard, Sounding Spirit, and the Country Music Association Foundation. He serves on the advisory board of Sounding Spirit, an Emory University research and publishing initiative dedicated to preserving, studying, publishing, and performing sacred songbooks and singing traditions that have shaped American musical life. His involvement in this work brings together his interests in scholarship, historically rooted musical practices, ethical engagement, teaching, and performance.
His commitment to providing resources for music educators also led him to create the Professional Choral Collective, an initiative that brought educators together to share instructional practices and strategies for building and sustaining successful music communities. That work expanded through a partnership with the Country Music Association Foundation and the Unified Voices for Music Education initiative, supporting educators across choral, instrumental, and elementary music settings.
Extending his work into public media, Dr. Fox created, wrote, and hosted KVNO’s radio program Reflections of Us, a series devoted to amplifying diverse voices, musical traditions, and experiences within classical music. Through conversations about representation, identity, history, culture, and musical practice, the program encouraged listeners to consider a broader understanding of whose stories and traditions form the landscape of classical and choral music.
Dr. Fox has also held significant leadership roles within the American Choral Directors Association. He served as President of ACDA’s ten-state Midwestern Region from 2024–2026 and as a member of the ACDA National Board. As Region President and conference chair, he led the development of the 2026 Midwestern ACDA Conference in Milwaukee, Reflections of Us, which centered the people, communities, traditions, and experiences reflected through choral music while bringing together conductors, educators, composers, singers, and thought leaders from throughout the region and beyond.
Among his recognitions are the 2021 Bryan R. Johnson Service Award from the Nebraska Music Educators Association and the 2022 University of Nebraska Omaha Award for Distinguished Research/Creative Activity, honors recognizing his contributions to music education, scholarship, creative activity, and service.
Across his work as a conductor, educator, scholar, author, performer, and arts leader, Dr. Fox seeks to build meaningful connections between people, music, scholarship, and community while helping expand the possibilities of contemporary choral practice.