Richard Nance has been a member of the music faculty at Pacific Lutheran University since 1992, where he serves as Director of Choral Activities and conducts the Choir of the West and Choral Union. Dr. Nance also teaches the four-semester choral conducting sequence and supervises student teachers. Prior to coming to Pacific Lutheran, Dr. Nance was Director of Choral Activities for seven years at Amarillo (Texas) Community College, and he taught in the public schools in both Texas and New Mexico. Nance holds bachelors and masters degrees from West Texas State University (now West Texas A&M) and the DMA degree from Arizona State University. He has studied conducting with Hugh Sanders, Douglas McEwen and David Stocker, and studied composition with Joseph Nelson and Randall Shinn.

Dr. Nance is an active member of the American Choral Directors Association, and has served ACDA as president for the state of Washington, president of the Northwestern division, and as the Choral Reviews Editor for the Choral Journal, a publication with 20,000 subscribers worldwide. Six choirs under Nance’s direction have been selected to appear at ACDA regional conventions (including five of his PLU choirs), and he directed the PLU Choral Union in performance at the 2001 ACDA National Convention in San Antonio. Dr. Nance’s choirs have toured Europe on several occasions, and have performed for the World Harp Congress, the United States Harp Association National Conference, the Cambridge (England) Summer Music Festival, Festival Bled (Slovenia), and the Harmonie Festival (Germany).

Dr. Nance served as director of music at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church of Lakewood from 1996-2009, and is active as a clinician and adjudicator. His compositions have been published by Hinshaw Music, Walton Music and Colla Voce Music. Dr. Nance was chosen to write a commissioned work for the Washington All-State Choir in 2002, and wrote the 2002 Raymond Brock Memorial Composition for the American Choral Directors Association, one of the highest honors to be awarded to a composer of choral music. Other recipients of this award include Morten Lauridsen, Samuel Adler, Daniel Pinkham, Eric Whitacre, Gwyneth Walker, René Clausen and Gian-Carlo Menotti.