VERO BEACH — Days before the St. Edward’s School choir sang at graduation ceremonies, the choir’s director was sitting through his own graduation. In mid-May, Daniel Koh received his doctoral degree in musical arts from Yale University.
Back home in Vero, as the newly anointed Dr. Koh raised his hands to conduct, there was one last lesson to impart to the senior class: Be braced for change.
Those hands guiding the singers were once a young man’s ticket to a career as a concert pianist, until Koh, a piano performance major, was stricken with tendonitis in both wrists.
At that point, it was his college graduation that loomed. Koh was forced to change the focus of his music major from piano to conducting.
He also had an interesting fallback: a second major in biology.
Koh ultimately graduated summa cum laude from Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California, where he was the class valedictorian.
Since his arrival in Vero in 2008, Koh’s conducting skills have enriched the Vero music scene beyond the St. Ed’s campus.
He has served as artistic director of the Vero Beach Choral Society, a post he just resigned.
He has also led or helped lead the Atlantic Chamber Singers, the Community Church Chancel Choir and the Atlantic Schola Cantorum.
He has also performed as a baritone soloist for the Community Church.
He still plays piano but only in brief sessions, managing his wrist pain through posture and relaxation.
The tendonitis developed from the rigors of practice during an intense and competitive stint as an exchange student at a music conservatory – so intense, he prefers not to name it.
“I was playing with too much tension,” he says.
The following year was a “very difficult time,” Koh admits.
He returned to his native Singapore during his senior year and converted his career track from piano to choral conducting.
Once admitted to Yale’s graduate program, he rose to become assistant director of the Yale Glee Club and director of four Yale choral groups.
Meanwhile, he was reduced to playing only brief accompaniment to those groups, as his wrists caused him chronic pain.
“I saw physiotherapists, orthopedists, physical therapists and chiropractors in Chicago, Connecticut, New Jersey and New York,” he says.
“It’s like a sports injury or a dancer’s injury. You just can’t control it and you struggle with it,” said Koh. “Mostly what they helped me with was pain management. “
In the end, the one person who really helped was a piano teacher in California who specializes in healing pianists with tendonitis.
She taught him to be aware of things like body alignment and relaxation of the shoulders.
“Nowadays, I’m not in pain on a day-to-day basis,” he says. But he has to limit practice to an hour or two.
His injury had one immediate positive consequence. While he was required to serve three years in the Singapore military, with his wrists painfully inflamed, he could not go into combat training and instead was allowed to join the military’s music division, another crucial twist in his career path.
“It was more like a day job,” says Koh. “Because I had evenings off, I was also able to sing in the Singapore Youth Choir, which is a very high level of choir in Singapore. That was how I got into Yale, because I was able to assistant conduct.”
He sent a video of himself conducting the group to Yale as his application to the doctoral program.
“When I think about it, I’m so sad I can’t play piano and violin but I’m grateful that it caused me to be able to get into Yale.”
Yale now has a considerable amount of footage of St. Edward’s singers. Koh has regularly submitted video recordings to fulfill his requirement for the “real-world” final year of the program.
“I was looking for a job that was conducting-heavy,” he says.
Ninety percent of his job is conducting, he says. He directs all of St. Edward’s choirs from 6th grade through 12th grade.
That includes two middle school choirs, the large unauditioned concert group in high school, as well as a women’s choir, a men’s choir and a mixed group, all auditioned.
He also teaches an AP music theory class, and directs the annual musical.
Koh, 31, is also the fine arts department chair, overseeing the visual and theatrical arts with a staff of seven.
In all, 160 students are involved in his choirs, or about half of the middle school students and a third of the upper school.
“In many ways, it’s been a great thing. I needed to be busy for the doctoral process. Part of it is building this portfolio to prove to the committee that you’re making lots of music,” he says.
While few of his students go on to major in music – senior Jamari Williams is one this year, heading out to study musical theater – Koh says his primary concern is to give his students a love of music.
“My goal isn’t to turn out music majors. My goal is to help people see the joy in music. Many of my students want to sing as an extracurricular activity to augment what they do primarily in college and that’s really important to me.”
As for his own graduation, his three siblings and his mother came from California and his father came from Kenya, where he has been involved in evangelical mission work with the organization Campus Crusade for Christ.
The commencement weekend included a combined ceremony of both undergrad and graduate degree candidates. Koh was one of only nine students earning a doctor of musical arts degree, and one of three in choral conducting.
The program, through the Yale School of Music, included coursework at the Institute of Sacred Music.
“I hadn’t spent a lot of time in New Haven in five years, so it was good to see the campus and my fellow graduates. It was overcast and drizzling, so there were lots of umbrellas and ponchos,” he said. “But it was all very rewarding, and very inspiring.”