Duane Cottrell is associate professor and associate director of choral studies at the University of Delaware. Ensembles under his direction have included the University Singers, a select women’s ensemble, the UD Jazz Singers, the Concert Choir, Schola Cantorum (2017-2018) and the UD Chorale (2013-2014). He also teaches conducting and choral music education courses at the graduate and undergraduate levels, and supervises student teachers. Prior to his appointment at UD, he was the interim director of choral activities at Portland State University in Portland, Oregon, where he conducted the Chamber Choir, the University Choir and the Symphonic Chorus. Dr. Cottrell also served as Doctoral Teaching Fellow at the University of North Texas, where he directed the 120-voice UNT Men's Chorus.

Dr. Cottrell has conducted mixed choirs, men's choirs and women's choirs at the middle school, high school and collegiate levels, and has worked with various church and community choruses. Under his direction, the UD University Singers, the select women’s ensemble at UD, appeared at the 2013 NAfME Eastern Conference in Hartford, CT, the 2014 Eastern Conference of ACDA in Baltimore, and the 2018 Eastern Conference of ACDA in Pittsburgh. He has served as an adjudicator or clinician in Texas, Oregon, Washington, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey.

Dr. Cottrell completed D.M.A. and M.M. degrees at the University of North Texas, where he studied choral conducting with Jerry McCoy; voice science and pedagogy with Stephen Austin; and music education with Warren Henry. Dr. Cottrell received a B.M.E. from Louisiana State University where he studied under Kenneth Fulton. He is an active member of the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA), and served as president of the Delaware chapter from 2013 to 2015. He also maintains memberships in the National Collegiate Choral Organization (NCCO), National Association for Music Education (NAfME), the College Music Society (CMS), and the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS).

Dr. Cottrell’s primary research interest is the science of the singing voice and its application to choral music, on which he has had articles published in the Choral Journal and The Choral Scholar, and has authored a chapter in the Oxford Handbook of Choral Pedagogy.  He has also presented lectures on voice science for choral conductors at the Texas Music Educators Association convention, the 4th International Conference on the Physiology and Acoustics of Singing, as well as national and regional conventions of the ACDA. He is currently the editor of the “On the Voice” column for ACDA’s Choral Journal.