Skip to main content

Nathan Reiff

Lecturer

Music

Contact

  1. Email:nreiff1@swarthmore.edu
  2. Phone: (610) 690-3705
  3. Lang Music Building 404
Nathan Reiff

Active as a conductor, educator, and vocalist, Nathan Reiff is Director of Choirs at Swarthmore College, where he conducts Chorus and Garnet Singers and teaches additional music courses. He holds Doctor of Musical Arts and Bachelor of Arts degrees from Yale University and a Master of Music degree from the University of Michigan. Reiff’s work as a conductor has brought him before ensembles representing some of the broad diversity of the choral world, including the Young People’s Chorus of New York City, the Yale Glee Club, the Yale Camerata, and the Ann Arbor Cantata Singers. From 2017 to 2023, Reiff served as Resident Conductor of the Harvard Glee Club and Choral Studies Faculty at Boston Conservatory at Berklee. At the Conservatory, he developed and taught a survey sequence on choral repertoire and conducted Chorale and Choir, two ensembles of undergraduate vocal performance students.

Beginning in 2019, Reiff also served as Music Director of JourneySongs, an interfaith hospice choir, and as founding member and co-facilitator of Cambridge Common Voices, the first neurodiverse choral ensemble in the Cambridge, MA area. Reiff’s scholarly projects have focused on the intersection of polystylism and incrementalism in Alfred Schnittke’s Concerto for Choir, the practice of hospice singing, and the works of Grace Williams. His primary teachers of conducting have included Jerry Blackstone, Marguerite Brooks, Jeffrey Douma, and David Hill.

Prior to his graduate studies, Reiff received a B.A. in Music with distinction at Yale, where he performed as a member and Music Director of the Whiffenpoofs, the nation’s oldest a cappella singing group. In addition to his work as a conductor, he taught music at the International School of Trieste in Trieste, Italy and assisted the violinist Midori with the administration of non-profit organizations specializing in music education and community outreach.