UCLA Choral Studies Fall 2025 Concert

James K. Bass, GRAMMY®-winning singer and conductor, is Professor and Chair of the Department of Music, and Director of Choral Studies at The Herb Alpert School of Music at UCLA. He is the associate conductor for the Miami-based ensemble Seraphic Fire and is the Artistic Director of the Long Beach Camerata Singers.

Bass is an active soloist and ensemble artist. In 2017 he made his Cleveland Orchestra solo debut singing with Franz Welser-Möst and the orchestra in Miami and in Severance Hall, Cleveland. Other engagements as a soloist include the New World Symphony with Michael Tilson-Thomas, The Florida Orchestra, Grand Rapids Symphony, Back Bay Chorale and Orchestra, Firebird Chamber Orchestra, and The Sebastians. He has appeared with numerous professional vocal ensembles including Seraphic Fire, Conspirare, the Santa Fe Desert Chorale, Apollo Master Chorale, Vox Humanae, True Concord, and Spire. He was the featured baritone soloist on the GRAMMY-nominated recording Pablo Neruda: The Poet Sings with fellow singer Lauren Snouffer, conductor Craig Hella-Johnson, and the GRAMMY-winning ensemble Conpirare. He is one of 13 singers on the GRAMMY®-nominated disc A Seraphic Fire Christmas and appears on CD recordings on the Harmonia Mundi, Naxos, Albany, and Seraphic Fire Media labels.

Bass was selected by the master conductor of the Amsterdam Baroque Soloists, Ton Koopman, to be one of only 20 singers for a presentation of Cantatas by J. S. Bach in Carnegie Hall and was an auditioned member of Robert Shaw’s workshop choir at Carnegie. He has appeared as conductor with the Florida Orchestra during their annual education concerts.

During his tenure as Artistic Director for the Master Chorale of Tampa Bay, the official chorus of the Florida Orchestra, he was responsible for five recordings and multiple world premieres. In 2012 he served as chorusmaster and co-editor for the Naxos recording entitled Delius: Sea Drift and Appalachia featuring the Florida Orchestra and conducted by Stefan Sanderling. In 2014 he was the principal preparer for the recording Holiday Pops Live! conducted by the principal pops conductor Jeff Tyzik. During his tenure as a chorusmaster, he has prepared choirs for Sir Colin Davis, Sir David Willcocks, Jahja Ling, Michael Tilson-Thomas, Gerard Schwarz, Giancarlo Guerrero, Michael Francis, Marcelo Lehninger, Stefan Sanderling, Evan Rogister, Danail Rachlev, Joshua Weilerstein, Markus Huber, David Lockington, Xian Zhang, Patrick Quigley, and Neal Stulberg.

His professional career has coincided with the development of Seraphic Fire as one of the premier vocal ensembles in the United States. He has been actively involved as soloist, ensemble artist, editor, producer, and preparer for 14 of the ensemble’s recordings and routinely conducts the ensemble in Miami and on tour. During the summer of 2011, he co-founded the Professional Choral Institute. In its inaugural year of recording, Seraphic Fire and PCI received the GRAMMY® nomination for Best Choral Performance for their recording of Johannes Brahms’ Ein Deuthches Requiem. As the Director of Education for the ensemble, he has been involved with annual events that service more than 2000 students in the Miami-Dade county area each year. In 2017 Seraphic Fire and UCLA launched a new educational initiative entitled the Ensemble Artist Program that aims to identify and train the next generation of high-level ensemble singers.

Bass received his Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Miami, where he was a doctoral fellow, and is a graduate of the Interlochen Arts Academy.

Rob Dietz is a multi award-winning singer and vocal percussionist who has been arranging, composing, teaching, and performing contemporary a cappella music for over twenty years. Based in Los Angeles, Rob got his start as an arranger and group coach on NBC’s The Sing-Off. His arrangements have been performed by top-tier vocal artists, including Grammy-winning groups Pentatonix and The Swingles, as well as VoicePlay, Kings Return, and many more.

He has been a contributing arranger for performances by world renowned artists such as Smokey Robinson, Flo Rida, Sara Bareilles, Incubus, and Pat Benatar. His work has appeared on a variety of television programs, including America’s Got Talent (NBC), To All The Boys: P.S. I Still Love You (Netflix), and Pitch Slapped (Lifetime).

Originally from Ithaca, NY, Rob began his musical journey in high school as a member of the a cappella quintet Ascending Height, with whom he produced the first-ever all-original high school a cappella album. He earned his bachelor’s degree in music with an outside field in business from Ithaca College in 2010. While at Ithaca, Rob had the honor of directing the all male-identified group, Ithacappella, with whom he twice advanced to the finals of the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella. He was also a member of both the Ithaca College Chorus and the Ithaca College Choir -the college’s select, touring vocal ensemble.

As a performer, Rob is an internationally recognized vocal percussionist, with credits including Glee (FOX) and The Late Late Show with James Corden. He was the founding vocal percussionist for both The Funx and Level, groups that gave him the opportunity to work with legendary performers including Jay Leno and Demi Lovato.

Rob has a deep passion for a cappella education, and is a founding co-director (along with Ben Bram and Avi Kaplan) of A Cappella Academy. In 2016, he launched Legacy, a youth a cappella group in Los Angeles. Under his direction, Legacy experienced a streak of competitive success, winning the Los Angeles A Cappella Festival’s Scholastic Competition, the Southwest semifinal round of the Varsity Vocals A Cappella Open, and the Finals of the International Championship of High School A Cappella at Lincoln Center. In 2023, he transitioned Legacy into Academy Choir: Los Angeles, a larger ensemble blending contemporary a cappella with modern choral music.

In addition to leading his own ensembles, Rob is a highly sought-after clinician and presenter. He has conducted honor choirs at regional and state festivals including Southwest ACDA, PMEA, WCDA, and NYSSMA. In the fall of 2025, he joined the faculty of the Herb Alpert School of Music at UCLA as a lecturer in Choral Music, where he directs the Chorale and teaches courses in choral pedagogy. He is also the author of A Cappella 101: A Beginner’s Guide to Contemporary A Cappella Singing (Hal Leonard).

Alongside his work in contemporary a cappella, Rob is also an accomplished choral composer, with works published by Hal Leonard, Alfred, GIA Publications, and Heritage. In 2021 his piece “The Gift” received a jury commendation as part of the King’s Singers New Music Prize competition. His pieces continue to be performed by choirs from all over the world. Rob currently serves as the national repertoire and resources co-chair for Contemporary/Commercial music for the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA).

Pianist James Lent is Lecturer and Coordinator of Instrumental Collaborative Piano at UCLA in addition to serving as a coach and accompanist for vocal studies. James completed his DMA at the Yale School of Music under teachers Boris Berman, Claude Frank, and Peter Frankl. He made his Alabama Symphony debut to critical acclaim performing Rachmaninoff’s Concerto No. 2 on 24 hours’ notice to replace Andre Watts.

He has performed with the Vancouver Symphony, the Houston Symphony, the Shanghai Philharmonic, the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, the Utah Symphony and the Florida West Coast Symphony, among others, and as solo recitalist at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, the Schleswig-Holstein Festival in Germany, for the National Chopin Foundation in Miami, at Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and at the Cleveland Museum of Art, where he premiered a new work written for him by American composer Frederic Rzewski.

Lent has performed with the renowned Paris-based Ensemble Intercontemporain under the direction of Pierre Boulez in a sold-out concert at Carnegie Hall, and his performances have been heard on National Public Radio.

His numerous awards include prizes in the New York Concert Artists Guild International Competition, the National Chopin Competition, the Washington International Piano Competition at the Kennedy Center, the Olga Koussevitsky Piano Competition in New York, and the Houston Symphony Ima Hogg National Young Artist Competition.He was a fellowship recipient at the Aspen Music Festival, the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, the Sarasota Music Festival, and the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, where he studied with Jerome Lowenthal.

Lent also teaches at AMDA (American Musical and Dramatic Academy) as collaborative pianist, vocal coach, and musical director. He has also served on the summer faculty at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara and the Hawaii Performing Arts Festival.