Teacher

Daniel is director of choral studies and vocal area coordinator at Southwestern Oklahoma State University, and he teaches ensembles, applied voice, and the choral music education sequence to performance, education, music business, and music therapy majors. He also teaches the Southwestern summer choral camp for OMEA/OCDA preparation and other workshops during the academic year that work to further enrich and improve the audition skills needed for successful placement in the state-level honor choirs. Daniel is a fervent advocate in the consistent use of solmization, voice building, and ensemble coaching in every rehearsal to better reinforce fundamentals of vocal music pedagogy and other core music principles found throughout a rounded music education.

Currently, Daniel serves as a conductor, clinician, and adjudicator in Oklahoma and other parts of the southwestern United States and is a regional and international scholar with focused interests in choral pedagogy, score study/editing, and foreign language diction. While at Southwestern, he has presented scholarship and served as a guest professor in Europe, Taiwan, and the United States. He has presented sessions at Southwestern American Choral Directors Association (2012 and 2020), Oklahoma Choral Directors Association (2017), and other conferences. In January 2025 at the Oklahoma Music Educators Association winter conference, Daniel will present “Get Your Ears Swole,” an aural skills session designed to prepare choral students for growth in music literacy.

Daniel has conducted honor choirs in Italy, Oklahoma, Missouri, and Arkansas, including the Kansas City Metro Honor Choirs (2019), Oklahoma Percussive Arts Society (2014), the College Music Society South Central Conference (2014), Tri-State Honor Choir (2011 and 2012), Oklahoma Music Educator Association Conference (2011 and 2017), and others. Before moving to Oklahoma, Daniel conducted at the Texas Music Educators Association conference (2005). In June 2022, the Southwestern Chamber Choir, under Daniel’s direction, competed in an international competition in Florence, Italy, and won the "Best Chamber Ensemble" and "Best Italian Language Performance" awards.

In addition to his career in music, he also teaches arnis, a Filipino martial art he has taught for twenty-four years after having tested with the late Grandmaster Ernesto Amador Presas for his Lakan Isa ranking in 1998. He teaches arnis through the SWOSU Continuing Education department’s “Filipino Martial Culture” course. Daniel holds both Lakan (1st degree black belt of Modern Arnis) and Lakan Dalawa (2nd degree black belt of Kombatan arnis) rankings, and he co-founded with his top student in Oklahoma the Oklahoma Arnis Association.

Feel free to view his website (http://faculty.swosu.edu/daniel.farris/) and the Department of Music website of Southwestern Oklahoma State University (www.swosu.edu). For more information or questions about the vocal/choral division and study in Southwestern’s music department, contact him at daniel.farris@swosu.edu or 580.774.3208.