Daniel T. Moe
Composer-in-Residence

The Church of the Redeemer is blessed to have Dr. Moe on staff as its Composer in Residence.  In addition to his position at Redeemer, for 21 years, Dr. Moe was the much-beloved Music Director (retired in ’06) for Key Chorale – the official chorus of the Florida West Coast Symphony in Sarasota, Florida.  He currently also serves as Adjunct Professor of Music at New College in Sarasota, where he conducts the choirs of New College.

Hailed by New Yorker music critic Andrew Porter as “that Dean of choral conductors,” Dr. Moe is a major educational force in conducting and choral literature, having developed distinguished graduate programs in these specialties at the University of Iowa. He served as Professor of Music at Oberlin Conservatory of Music for 20 years until 1992. 

In over 40 years of choral conducting, Dr. Moe has brought nearly every landmark choral-orchestral work in the repertoire to performance, ranging from Bach’s “Passion According to St. John” to the Britten “War Requiem.” His work has drawn him into the nation’s great concert halls including Carnegie Hall, Town Hall, the Kennedy Center, and Lincoln Center, where he has twice served as consulting conductor for the International University Choral Festival.

Dr. Moe’s published works include a commission for the inauguration of John D. Rockefeller IV as President of West Virginia Wesleyan College (“Exhortations from Proverbs,” 1976). In 1993 his “Cantata of Peace” was performed in Colorado at the opening mass for World Youth Day, a part of the festivities celebrating the visit by Pope John Paul II to Denver.

Dr. Moe has received a plethora of honors and recognitions, including an honorary Doctor of Music degree recognizing him for “creative leadership in the field of choral music” from Gustavus Adolphus College; the 1974 Canticum Novum award from Wittenberg University; an Honorary Citation from the Bruckner Society of America; the McGowen Memorial Award; and a fellowship from the Danforth Foundation that enabled him to complete his Ph.D.  In 1993, he received an honorary doctorate from his alma mater Concordia College.  He also holds a masters degree from the University of Washington, and a Ph.D., from the University of Iowa, and has studied at the Kirchenmusikschule of Hanover and the Aspen School of Music.