Rate My Professor Buddy James

Buddy James is Professor of Music at California State University, East Bay, serving as Chair of the Department of Music, Director of Vocal Studies, and Founding Director of the School of Arts and Media. He earned a Doctor of Musical Arts from the University of Southern California, where he was named Outstanding Doctoral Graduate in the Department of Choral and Sacred Music after conducting the USC University Chorus and restarting the USC Men’s Chorus. James holds a Master of Fine Arts in Choral Music from the University of California, Irvine, awarded as a Chancellor’s Fellow, and a Bachelor of Music Education with honors from the University of Akron. His teachers included William Dehning, Joseph Huszti, Edward Maclary, David Wilson, James Vail, and John Barnett.

Prior to CSUEB, James taught at the University of California, Irvine; Whittier College; University of Southern California; University of California, Berkeley; Elizabethtown College; and Millersville University of Pennsylvania, where he received the Person of the Year award in 2004. At CSUEB, he was Music Director of the Symphony Orchestra from 2007 to 2010. He currently directs Schola Cantorum Silicon Valley and the San Francisco Bay Area Chamber Choir, and serves as a frequent adjudicator and clinician for choral competitions, workshops, and festivals. James is a founding officer and past president of the National Collegiate Choral Organization, with board service for the American Choral Directors Association, California Choral Directors Association, National Association for Music Education, Intercollegiate Men’s Choruses, and ACDA Pennsylvania. His choirs have toured Eastern and Western Europe, Mexico, and Asia, representing the United States at the 2005 and 2008 World Choral Festivals in Puebla, Mexico, and the 2009 Vilnius festival marking its European Capital of Culture status. Guest conducting includes Pro Musica Vilnius in 2007 and the East Bay Singers at Japan’s Fukuoka Institute of Technology in 2014. Awards include the 2015-16 George and Miriam Phillips Outstanding Professor Award, 2022-2023 Faculty Excellence Award in the College of Arts, Letters, and Social Sciences at CSUEB, and the 2019 Distinguished Music Educator Alumni Award from the University of Akron.