The Dalton School

David Shuler

Music Director

David Shuler was educated at the Eastman School of Music, Columbia University, and the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood.   He studied organ with David Craighead and Leonard Raver, and composition with Joseph Schwantner, Samuel Adler and Gunther Schuller.   He has received numerous awards, including a BMI-SC award for composition and First Prize in the Mid-Hudson Valley Chapter American Guild of Organists Organ Playing Competition.

Mr. Shuler is presently Director of Music and Organist at the historic Church of Saint Luke in the Fields in New York City, where he oversees an extensive music program.   In addition to an active children's choir program, a professional choir sings masses and motets from the fifteenth century to the present day at the principal services of the church throughout the year.   The choir is featured in an annual concert series of sacred music, and has made numerous recordings.   The latest recording of the Choir of Saint Luke in the Fields is Refuge and Strength: Selections from the Psalter of the Book of Common Prayer , released in June of 2001 by Church Publishing, the publishing arm of the national Episcopal Church.

Prior to the appointment at St. Luke in the Fields, Mr. Shuler was the Director of Music at St. John's Episcopal Church in Stamford, Connecticut.   He has also held positions as Organist and Choirmaster at the Church of the Holy Trinity in New York City and Assistant Organist at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine.   Mr. Shuler has also been active as a synagogue musician, presently holding the position of Organist and Choir Director for Congregation Habonim of New York City.   In addition, Mr. Shuler is the Music Director of the Dalton Alumni Chorale in Manhattan.

Mr. Shuler has been particularly active as a champion of contemporary music.   He has premiered organ works of Charles Wuorinen, William Albright, Ralph Shapey, Gunther Schuller, and Frank Retzel, among others.   Mr. Shuler received a National Endowment for the Arts Consortium Commissioning Grant to commission works from Ralph Shapey, Charles Wuorinen, and Gunther Schuller as well as a grant from the Washington, D.C. American Guild of Organists Foundation for the promotion of contemporary music.   In addition, he has recorded the choral music of Frank Wigglesworth with the Choir of the Church of St. Luke in the Fields for CRI.   In 1998, Mr. Shuler received a grant from the Mary Flagler Cary Trust to record Responsoria by Richard Toensing with the Choir at St. Luke's for the North/South Consonance label.

Mr. Shuler has been featured as an organ soloist on both the East and West coasts in productions of the ballet Voluntaries , Glen Tetley's choreography of Francis Poulenc's Concerto for Organ, Strings and Timpani by the American Ballet Theatre and the Dance Theatre of Harlem.

Mr. Shuler is a Fellow of the American Guild of Organists, and was awarded the certificate at the age of 22, one of the youngest organists to achieve this distinction.   He has served on numerous AGO committees, both at the national and local levels, and was for seven years the Director of the National Examination Committee of the A.G.O.

Bernadette Hoke

Pianist / Assistant Conductor

Bernadette Hoke performs each year in concert and recital with a variety of
vocalists, instrumentalists, choirs and chamber groups. Her New York
performances include appearances on the Noonday Concert series in St. Paul’s
chapel, The Friends and Enemies of New Music series and The MoBiA (Museum
of Biblical Art) concert series. As a member of the Birk and Hoke Duo, she was a Chamber Music Award winner of the Artists International competition and was presented in concert at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall and Merkin Concert
Hall in New York City. The duo has also performed at the Center for Chamber Music in Greenwich, Connecticut and on numerous concert series in the tri-state area. Ms. Hoke is also the Music Director and organist of the First Reformed Episcopal Church in New York city where she directs a professional choir. During her time there she has conducted the choir in performances of the Requiems by John Rutter and Maurice Durufle, Handel’s Messiah and the Brahms Liesbeslieder Waltzes.

In Memorium
Harold Aks

Harold Aks, the Dalton School's chorus conductor for almost 50 years, was beloved by generations of students.  Having studied under Robert Shaw and Pierre Monteux, he inspired the creation of the Dalton Chorale and led it until his death in 2000. Overlapping his five-decade affiliation with Dalton were 43 years spent as a lecturer at Sarah Lawrence and as director of the Sarah Lawrence Chorus.  During an incredibly varied and productive career, he conducted and taught at the Juilliard School, the Mannes College of Music, Mills College and the Walden School, and he founded and led the Interracial Chorus.  A guest conductor at M.I.T., Princeton and Yale, he also appeared at Carnegie Hall, Town Hall and Lincoln Center.  His international resume included performances in Austria, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Holland, Israel, Italy, Liechtenstein, Russia, Spain, Switzerland and Yugoslavia.  For 16 years, he served as Musical Director and Chief Lecturer of the St. Moritz International Choir Festival.

Board of Directors