Dr. Robert K Demaree

Degrees and Schools

• Bachelor of Science in Music w/outside field of Chemistry, Indiana University
• Master of Arts in Choral Conducting, University of Iowa
• Doctor of Musical Arts in Choral Conducting, University of Illinois

Biography

Bob Demaree joined the UW-Platteville faculty in 1992.  Dr. Demaree conducts the Chamber Choir, the Coro D'Angeli women's choir, and the Singing Pioneers men's choir, and teaches choral conducting, choral literature, and music history.  Annual choral area events include the High School Choral Festival, choir tour, and performances of major choral/orchestral works.  Since 1992, the choral area has sponsored performances and workshops by The Dale Warland Singers, the Severacek Children's Choir, Angelica, Chanticleer (twice), the Moscow State Conservatory Choir, the Jubilate Children's Choir, the Albert McNeil Jubilee Singers, and the Spirit Chorale of Los Angeles.  UWP choristers have also traveled to New York City, Germany, the Czech Republic, Canada, Austria, England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland since 2000. 

Since 1995, UWP choirs have been invited to perform nine times for the Wisconsin School Music Conference, eight times for the Wisconsin Choral Directors Association convention, once for the MENC North Central Division convention, and once for the ACDA North Central Division convention.  In addition, UWP choirs have performed the Mozart Requiem, Stravinsky Symphony of Psalms, Brahms Requiem, Beethoven Missa Solemnis, Verdi Requiem, Handel’s Messiah, Beethoven’s Symphony #9, Mahler’s Symphony #2, Bach’s Magnificat, and Haydn's Paukenmesse, Heiligmesse and Schopfungsmesse with orchestra.  In the fall of 1998, UWP choirs were invited to perform Scriabin's Prometheus in Chicago's Orchestra Hall with the Kirov Orchestra of the Mariinsky Theatre under the direction of Valery Gergiev.  Dr. Demaree organized the commissioning of two works in 2002, a sacred work by John Ferguson and Her Sacred Spirit Soars, a secular work by Eric Whitacre now published by Hal Leonard.  Since then, he has participated in over a dozen commissioning project.

Demaree is active as a clinician, church musician, and adjudicator.  In October of 2009, he conducted the WMEA High School Mixed Honors Choir and then was asked to lead the WMEA High School Treble Honors Choir in October of 2017.  In 2006-07, he conducted the North Dakota All-State women’s choir.  He has presented at numerous conferences in the upper Midwest.  He was a founder, artistic director, and singer in the Heartland Singers, a private, professional chorus of 36 musicians from Wisconsin and Iowa that worked together from 2002-2012.  From 2009-2018, Dr. Demaree served as the Artistic Director and Conductor of the Dubuque Chorale, one of the Midwest’s premier community choirs.  In the fall of 2018, he co-founded the 32-voice Midwest Choral Artists. In the fall of 2001, Demaree was named a recipient of the Alliant Energy/Underkofler Award for Teaching Excellence.  This prestigious award was one of four given in 2001 to faculty from the Wisconsin System.  He and his wife Rebekah were both named as Distinguished Alumni of the Indiana University Singing Hoosiers in 2004.  He has received the Phi Kappa Phi Excellence in Teaching Award, the Excellence in Service to Students Award from the National Society of Leadership and Success and UWP's Outstanding Advisor to a Student Organization Award. In January of 2019, he received the Morris Hayes Award from WCDA, which is awarded to those who have made outstanding contributions to choral music in Wisconsin.

From 2014 to 2016, Demaree served as President of the North Central Division of ACDA and chaired the 2016 conference in Sioux Falls, SD.  He is a past president of WCDA, was the chair for their 2004 and 2005 conventions and has chaired, hosted, provided sessions or conducted for most of its major projects, including Refresh!, Singing in Wisconsin, and NextDirection.

An alumnus of Indiana University (B.S), the University of Iowa (M.A.) and the University of Illinois (D.M.A.), he has studied or sung under the leadership of Don V Moses, Chester L. Alwes, Helmut Rilling, Robert Shaw, Margaret Hillis, and Richard Bloesch.