Vernon E. Huff

Dr. Vernon Huff is the Director of Choral Activities and Associate Professor of Music at SUNY Fredonia, where he teaches courses in choral conducting, supervises graduate conducting students, and conducts the Chamber Choir, College Choir, and Masterworks Chorus. He oversees a choral program of five choirs and over three hundred fifty students. 

Huff earned his Bachelor of Music in music education from Furman University, the Master of Music degree in choral conducting from The Ohio State University, and the Doctoral Musical Arts degree in choral conducting from Arizona State University. At OSU and ASU he held graduate assistantships in the conducting area.

With ten years of public-school teaching at the elementary and secondary levels, he has taught choral and general music in California, Ohio, and South Carolina. In 2006, Huff earned National Board certification in Choral Music, Early Adolescence through Young Adulthood. At the high school level, he worked with concert choirs, show choirs, gospel choirs, and in musical theatre. He is a Suzuki certified piano instructor and frequently performed as a baritone soloist, including as at the Piccolo Spoleto festival in Charleston, SC. 

Huff is in demand as a clinician and has conducted honor choirs and adjudicated festivals, throughout the state of New York and the northeast. He has presented at local, state, region, and national conventions of the American Choral Directors Association and the National Association for Music Education. He formerly served as Resources and Repertoire Coordinator for Colleges and Universities and the collegiate activities coordinator for the New York chapter of the American Choral Directors Association. He is also the former Governor of Province 17 of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia. At SUNY Fredonia, Huff serves in a variety of leadership roles, including on the University Senate Executive Committee. 

For the past three years, Huff’s choirs have earned the national distinction of the American Prize in choral performance (university large division): 2nd, 3rd, and 2nd places. The Chamber Choir has performed at the American Choral Directors Association regional conference in Boston (2022) and the New York State Schools Music Association conference in Rochester (2023). In 2023, Huff led the Fredonia Choirs on a tour of England, and in 2025 the group toured to Italy. The “Holidays at Fredonia” annual choral broadcast has been broadcast over New York state PBS stations for five years, with the current broadcast available to view on PBS.com.

Office Hours

• By appointment

Teaching Interests

Choral methods and pedagogy, conducting, choral literature, spirituals

Research Interests

The development of the spiritual in the 1900s and beyond. The life and music of William Levi Dawson. Digital Media and Participatory Culture.

Professional Membership

• National Collegiate Choral Organization
• Chautauqua Music Teachers Association
• American Choral Directors Association
• National Association for Music Education
• Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia