Colin Britt

Colin Britt, originally from Maine, holds a bachelor’s degree in music composition from the Hartt School, a master’s degree in choral conducting from the Yale School of Music and Yale Institute of Sacred Music, and a doctorate in choral conducting from Rutgers University. His conducting teachers have included Patrick Gardner, Marguerite Brooks, Jeffrey Douma, Simon Carrington, Edward Bolkovac, and Masaaki Suzuki. He has studied composition with David Macbride, Larry Alan Smith, Ken Steen, and Stephen Gryc, organ with Ezequiel Menendez, piano with Margreet Francis and Brian Franck, and voice with Wayne Rivera, Cherie Caluda, and Judith Malafronte. He has sung with Yale Choral Artists, the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, the Greater Middletown Chorale, Con Brio, and Concora.

His compositions have been performed by ensembles at Rutgers, Westminster Choir College, Hartt, Yale, and throughout the country, including Seraphic Fire, the Yale Schola Cantorum, the Yale Alumni Chorus, C4 (The Choral Composer-Conductor Collective), VOCE, and the Riverside Choral Society. In the 2008-2009 season, he was the composer-in-residence for the New Haven Chorale. His works have been performed in several states and by ensembles touring China, Austria, Hungary, Georgia, Armenia, and the Czech Republic. He was a finalist in the 2013 Young New Yorkers’ Chorus Competition for Young Composers, and was the commissioned composer for the 2017 Maine All-State Honor Choir, the 2020 All-Eastern Honor Choir, and the 2020 Maine Bicentennial. His choral compositions are published with Alliance Music Publications, Edition Peters, and GIA Publications.

Also active in musical theater, Colin has directed music for productions with the West Hartford Summer Arts Festival, the Summer Place Players, and Playhouse on Park, most recently in their productions of Cabaret, Chicago (for which he and Darlene Zoller won the 2011 CT Broadway World Award for Best Direction), Company, and The Last Five Years. Other musical direction credits include Singin’ in the Rain, Tommy, Fiddler on the Roof, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Joseph and the Amazing…, and Sweeney Todd.

In 2012-2013, he and his friend and colleague Arianne Abela founded and directed 3Penny Chorus and Orchestra, a pickup ensemble that specialized in choral/orchestral covers of popular music. This led to performances on The Today Show and America’s Got Talent, culminating in a performance at Radio City Music Hall.

Colin has served as a part-time lecturer in choral music and conductor of the University Choir at Rutgers, as music director of Marquand Chapel at Yale, on the adjunct conducting faculty at Hartt, as the conductor of the Hartford Chorale Chamber Singers, as the assistant music director at the Cathedral of St. Joseph in Hartford, and on the faculty in the choral department at SUNY New Paltz. He is the founding director of Terpsichore Ensemble, a professional chorus specializing in the performance of Renaissance and contemporary music, particularly works by emerging and marginalized voices. He currently serves as choir director at Rutgers Preparatory School, as director of music for Grace Church Van Vorst in Jersey city, and conducts the West Village Chorale in New York.