Dr. J. Truman Dalton has served as Artistic Director and Conductor of the Charleston Civic
Chorus since 1981, actively promoting quality choral literature of recent composition as well
as significant standard repertoire. Performances have included several West Virginia premieres
of recent works.
Recently retired, he served for thirty five years as Professor of Music and Director of Choral Activities at West Virginia State University. Dr. Dalton holds both M.M. and Ph.D. degrees from the Indiana University School of Music. He earned the B.S. degree from the University of Sioux Falls, and with his wife Clarice was co-recipient of its 2002 Outstanding Music Alumnus Award.
Dr. Dalton has been an active member of the American Choral Directors Association throughout his professional career. He served eleven years as Local Arrangements Chair for the WVACDA conference in Charleston. In 2003 he received the WVACDA Jean Singer Award of Excellence for Distinguished Service to Choral Music in West Virginia. Dr. Dalton served key roles in coordinating the 2006 convention of the Southern Division ACDA in Charleston. Active in the West Virginia Music Educators Association (MENC), he served for twenty-five years as chairman of the Region 3 Solo and Ensemble Festival.
Dr. Dalton served a two year term as president of the Fellowship of American Baptist Musicians, coordinating two national Conferences for Church Musicians that featured clinicians Eph Ehly, André Thomas, Peter Dubois, and others. At other conferences, he has worked closely with Anton Armstrong, John Ferguson, David Davidson, Dale Warland, Arnold Epley, Sara Lynn Baird, and others. He has prepared choirs for performances with notables ranging from Barry Manilow and Foreigner to Robert Shaw, Daniel Pinkham, Paul Halley, and Gregg Smith. In 1991 he organized and directed the 800-voice choir at the biennial convention of the American Baptist Churches-USA. Dr. Dalton twice served as Interim Choir Director at Charleston's Christ Church United Methodist; summer, 1975, and 8½ months, 1991-1992.
Dr. Dalton is widely sought as a voice teacher, conductor, and adjudicator for choral and solo competitions, baritone soloist, and presenter at choral and vocal workshops. With the internationally acclaimed Indiana University Opera Theatre, he sang major roles in Cosi fan Tutte, The Long Christmas Dinner, Dido and Aeneas, and minor roles in several other operas. In other venues he has sung major roles in Showboat, Annie Get Your Gun, The Mikado, Damn Yankees, The Merry Widow, Threepenny Opera, The Medium, and The Telephone, and appeared as soloist in West Virginia performances of Elijah, Messiah, and Ein Deutsches Requiem. In Japan, with his wife Clarice, he presented several benefit concerts (voice, piano, and trumpet) for the Japan Bone Marrow Donor Bank program in 1991. Also with Clarice, he presented the West Virginia premiere performances of "_to cast a shadow again," a song cycle for baritone, trumpet, and piano, by Juilliard composer Eric Ewazen.