Dr. Duane R. Karna, Associate Professor of Music Performance and
Director of Choral Activities, oversees the Ball State University choral
program, which consists of Chamber Choir, Concert Choir, Women’s Chorus,
Statesmen, University Singers, Opera Chorus and the University Choral Union.
Dr. Karna conducts both the Chamber Choir and the Women’s Choir. He also
coordinates the BSU graduate program in choral music, which offers a M.M. and a
D.A. in Choral Conducting.
The Ball
State University Chamber Choir, under his direction, performed an invited
concert session at the Indiana Music Educators Association conference in Ft.
Wayne, Indiana on January 22, 2011. The
choir will be in residence at the Bavarian Music Academy in Marktoberdorf,
Germany in January 2012.
Dr. Karna
comes to BSU from the University of Nevada-Reno, where he was Assistant
Professor of Music and Director of Choral Studies. The Nevada Chamber Chorale toured southern
Germany and Austria in January 2004 where the choir was in residence for two
weeks at the Bavarian Music Academy in Marktoberdorf, Germany. In January 2006, the Reno Chamber Singers
were in residence for one week at the Bavarian Music Academy where they
performed and also participated in a workshop on the choral music of Argentina.
The
Nevada Chamber Chorale, under his direction, was selected and invited to
perform a concert session at the 61st MENC National Biennial In-Service Conference in
Milwaukee, Wisconsin on April 10, 2008.
Dr. Karna
has held previous appointments at the University of Nevada-Reno, University of
Oregon in Eugene, Oregon; Central Washington University in Ellensburg,
Washington; and Salisbury State University in Salisbury, Maryland. His Bachelor
of Music in Vocal Performance is from the University of Puget Sound in his
hometown of Tacoma, Washington; his two Masters of Music, one in Vocal
Performance and the other in Choral Conducting, are from Southern Methodist
University in Dallas, Texas where he studied with Berton Coffin and Lloyd
Pfautsch; and his Doctor of Musical Arts with a major in Choral Conducting and
a minor in Vocal Performance is from the University of Arizona in Tucson where
he worked with Maurice Skones.
Dr. Karna
is an accomplished singer and choral conductor and has collaborated with Sten
Ternström from the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm, Sweden on
writing the chapter “Choir” in The Science of Psychology and Music
Performance: Creative Strategies for Teaching and Learning, which was published in 2002 by Oxford
University Press.
In
January 2005, Dr. Karna presented his preliminary research on the topic of
choral acoustics at the International Conference on the Arts & Humanities
in Honolulu, Hawaii and, in April 2006, he was invited to present the session The Choral Voice: An Introduction to Choir
Acoustics at the 60th MENC National Biennial In-Service Conference in
Salt Lake City, Utah.
In
February 2005 he was invited to present his research paper on The Selected Choral Works of Arnold Bax
at the National ACDA Conference in Los Angeles, California. An excerpt from
this larger paper, “Arnold Bax’s Mater
Ora Filium & Of A Rose I Sing A Song”
was published in the December 2005 ACDA Choral
Journal. In August 2005, Dr. Karna
presented The Use of the IPA in the
Choral Rehearsal in a poster paper session at the Sixth International
Congress of Voice Teacher’s Conference in Vancouver, B.C.,Canada. An excerpt
from this research paper was published in the October 2006 issue of MENC’sTeaching Music. Dr. Karna presented The Use of the IPA in the Choral Rehearsal at the Northwest
Division MENC Conference in Portland, Oregon in February 2007 and presented a
similar interest session at the Western Division ACDA Conference in Anaheim,
California on March 1, 2008. He presented The
Use of the IPA in the Choral Rehearsal at the Ninth World Symposium on
Choral Music in Puerto Madryn, Patagonia, Argentina in August of 2011. A book
contract has been offered by Scarecrow Press in Lanham, Maryland for his
forthcoming manuscript The Use of the IPA
in the Choral Rehearsal.
Dr. Karna
was also invited to present a poster paper session on The Use of the IPA in the Choral Rehearsal at the Fourth
International Conference on the Physiology and Acoustics of Singing in San
Antonio, Texas January 7-10, 2009.
He
presented an invited workshop session on The
Use of the IPA in the Choral Rehearsal at the Fifth International
Conference on the Physiology and Acoustics of Singing in Stockholm, Sweden in
August 2010. He also presented The Choral Voice: An Introduction to Choir
Acoustics at the Seventh International Congress of Voice Teachers (ICVT7) –
Singing Past and Present: Innovation and
Tradition in Paris, France July 15-19, 2009.
On
February 11, 2007, Dr. Karna made his Carnegie Hall conducting debut in New York
City with MidAmerica Productions, conducting Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Regina Coeli, K. 108 and K. 127.