Gerald Custer is a multifaceted choral musician, active as conductor, composer, author, clinician and teacher. A native of Baltimore, he earned a Bachelor of Music degree in choral music education at Westminster Choir College (Princeton, NJ), a master’s degree in orchestral conducting with added studies in historical musicology at The George Washington University (Washington, DC), and is presently pursuing doctoral study in choral conducting at Michigan State University (East Lansing, Michigan).

Mr. Custer studied conducting with Dennis Shrock, Robert Carwithen, and George Steiner. He also took part in conducting master classes with Robert Shaw and Wilhelm Ehmann. While an undergraduate, he was assistant conductor of Westminster’s Collegium Musicum and sang for maestros Leonard Bernstein, Pierre Boulez, and William Steinberg with the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Pittsburgh Symphony. In graduate school, he founded and directed the George Washington University Chamber Singers and served as associate conductor of the Alexandria (VA) Symphony.

An award-winning composer and arranger, Mr. Custer studied with Malcolm Williamson and Harald Zabrack. His work is featured on “Inscape: Choral Music of Gerald Custer,” performed by the Voices of Anam Cara conducted by James Jordan, and as the title track on the Grammy-nominated “Innisfree” by the same forces. He has been written extensively for the Westminster Choir and Williamson Voices at Westminster Choir College, as well as for the State Singers of Michigan State University, college and church choirs, and organists Marilyn Mason and Norah Duncan IV. Recent commissions include a work for the choir of Interlochen Arts Academy and a symphony for chorus and orchestra premiered at Carnegie Hall by the Metropolitan Youth Orchestra of New York.

For ten years, Mr. Custer conducted The Arbor Consort, a chamber choir which was a featured ensemble at the Michigan Renaissance Festival. He also served as interim conductor of the Saginaw Choral Society and directed choral activities at Schoolcraft College and Oakland Community College. He presently teaches music theory and composition in the Department of Music at Wayne State University (Detroit), and leads a multiple-choir program at First Presbyterian Church of Farmington in Farmington Hills, Michigan.