James Bass
Professor - Director of Choral Studies; Conducting, Music Performance

Director, Choral Studies

James K. Bass, three-time GRAMMY®-nominated singer and conductor, is Professor and Director of Choral Studies at the Herb Alpert School of Music at UCLA. He is the Associate Conductor and Director of Education 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 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 ensembles 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.

Alison Deane
Associate Adjunct Professor
Christoph Bull
Adjunct Professor - Organ Performance
David Kaplan
Assistant Professor - Piano Performance
Joshua Ranz
Lecturer - Clarinet Performance
Peter Kazaras
Distinguished Professor - Director of Opera UCLA
Kay Rhie
Assistant Professor
Aubrey Foard
Lecturer - Tuba Performance
Ji Young An
Lecturer - Violin Performance
Movses Pogossian
Distinguished Professor, Director of Armenian Music Program
Jens Lindemann
Distinguished Professor - Trumpet Performance and Brass Area Head
Herbie Hancock
Adjunct Professor; LA Phil Guest Artist
Wayne Shorter
Adjunct Professor; Star-Studded Tribute LA Phil (April 2020)
Antonio Lysy
Professor - Cello Performance and Strings Area Head
Adam Gilberti
Lecturer--Music Education/Woodwinds
Victoria Kirsch
Lecturer - Vocal Coaching
Michael Dean
Professor, Voice Performance
Lucy Yates
Lecturer - Vocal Diction, Vocal Coaching
Johanna Gamboa-Kroesen
Assistant Professor--Music Education
Gregory Goodall
Lecturer - Percussion Performance
Amy Sanchez
Lecturer - Horn Performance
Rakefet Hak
Lecturer - Music Director of the UCLA Opera Workshop
Terri Richter
Instructor, Beginning Voice--Summer Session A
Ian Krouse
Distinguished Professor
Travis J. Cross
Chair of Music; Professor
Cheryl Lin Fielding
Lecturer - Vocal Diction, Vocal Coaching
Chris Hanulik
Adjunct Professor - String Bass Performance; Principal Bass LA Phil
Maria Fortuna Dean
Lecturer - Voice Performance
Juliana Gondek
Distinguished Professor, Voice Performance
Peter Yates
Adjunct Professor - Guitar Performance
Iris Malkin
Lecturer - Vocal Coaching
William Kinderman
Professor -- Elaine Krown Klein Chair in Performance Studies
Denis Bouriakov
Lecturer - Flute Performance; Principal Flute LA Phil
Katherine Syer
Adjunct Associate Professor
Boris Allakhverdyan
Lecturer - Clarinet Performance; Principal Clarinet LA Phil
Lou Anne Neill
Lecturer - Harp Performance; Harp LA Phil
Theresa Dimond
Lecturer - Percussion Performance
Wendy Caldwell
Lecturer - Vocal Coaching
Arturo O’Farrill
Associate Dean for Equity, Diversity & Inclusion; Professor
Jocelyn Ho
Assistant Professor - Performance Studies
Jonathan Davis
Lecturer - Oboe Performance
Vladimir Chernov
Distinguished Professor - Voice Performance
John Steinmetz
Lecturer - Bassoon Performance
Gloria Cheng
Adjunct Professor - Contemporary Music, Performance Studies
Che-Yen Chen
Professor - Viola Performance
Varty Manouelian
Lecturer - Violin Performance; Violin LA Phil
Erin Bouriakov
Lecturer - Flute Performance
Inna Faliks
Professor - Head of Piano
James Miller
Lecturer - Trombone Performance; Associate Principal Trombone LA Phil
Lily Chen-Hafteck
Special Assistant to the Inaugural Dean for curricular reform; Professor

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