Instructor
Department of Music
FAC 108
(580) 774- 3208
daniel.farris@swosu.edu

Daniel is in his second year with the music faculty of Southwestern Oklahoma State University and on the music staff of First Presbyterian Church of Elk City, OK.  In his first year at SWOSU, the SWOSU Community Chorus performed PDQ Bach’s The Seasonings, Franz Josef Haydn’s Kleine Orgelsolomesse, and various other choral works from many genres and time periods.  Last spring, Daniel and the SWOSU Chamber Singers performed a concert and recording session dedicated to the sacred music of Herbert Howells which included Oklahoma and national debuts of various works from Howells’s repertory.  The Western Oklahoma Choral Directors Association has chosen him to be the Junior High clinician and conductor for the WOCDA Junior High competition concert scheduled for performance on 25 November 2008.  

Before moving to Weatherford, Daniel worked professionally as a music educator, performer, voice teacher, and wine consultant across the Dallas/Fort Worth area for nine years.  His teaching appointments began in the DFW area with the University of North Texas as the UNT Men’s Chorus conductor and music theory teaching fellow (1998-2003).  Daniel taught voice privately in the Keller Independent Schools for three years, and then began teaching high school choral music and music theory at Arlington High School with Dinah Menger (2004-2006).

During his tenure at UNT, he performed with the Denton Bach Society and UNT’s Canticum novum (1998-2003) conducted by Henry Gibbons, concentrating on the works of J. S. Bach, Felix Mendelssohn, Hugo Distler, Johannes Brahms, and other composers.  With the UNT Opera department, Daniel was the assistant conductor for their 2002 production of Don Giovanni, and chorusmaster for Dialogue of the Carmelites (2000), Don Giovanni (2002), and the first mounting of the world premiere of Heinrich Scheuble’s Dorian Grey (2003).  In the 2001-2002 season of the Dallas Opera Company, he sang in the production of the last opera of Wagner’s opera cycle, Das Ring des Nibelungen.  Daniel performed regularly and toured internationally with the Arlington Choral Society (Italy 2001), Saint Mark School of Texas Schola (England 2002), and the Helios Ensemble, as well as with various churches and choirs throughout Texas.

Daniel received his bachelor degree in music from Angelo State University (1997), and is currently slated to graduate with a doctorate of musical arts from the University of North Texas this year.  He has also taught arnis, a Filipino martial art, for nine years after having tested with Grandmaster Ernesto Amador Presas for his Lakan Isa ranking in 1998.  He currently teaches arnis at the Chris Pollman Karate Academy in Weatherford.  Daniel lives in the Weatherford/Thomas area with his wife, Angela, and his three children Anthony, Amelia, and Daphne.