- Professor
- Director of Choral Activities
Biography
Director of Choral Activities, Professor of Music, Former Director of the WSU School of Music
Dean Luethi (lee-thee) serves as the Director of Choral Activities, Professor, and former Director of the School of Music at Washington State University. His choirs have been invited to perform at regional American Choral Directors Association (ACDA) and National Association for Music Education (NAfME) conferences.
Luethi is co-host of the Choirfam Podcast, a show dedicated to engaging in conversations about choral literature, conducting, pedagogy, and composition. The podcast has over 120 episodes, is currently in its fifth season, and has over 41k downloads. Their guests range from choral composers such as Tracy Wong, B.E. Boykin, and Melissa Dunphy to conductors such as André Thomas, Mark Anthony Carpio, and Hilary Apfelstadt.
Known as a choral pedagogue, Luethi has presented sessions at national, regional, and state conferences of ACDA and regional and state conferences of NAfME. In addition to his work in the US, he has presented research, workshops, or conducted choirs at festivals and conferences in Austria, Canada, China, Cuba, Germany, India, South Korea, and Poland. Luethi is published in the Choral Journal and the Music Educators Journal and his two books, A Quick Start Guide to Choral Singing and Aligning Voices: Exercises to Build Choral Musicianship, are available through GIA Publications.
In the summer of 2024, Luethi’s project choir recorded an album highlighting the works of choral composers of Washington State including commissions by John Muehleisen and Jacob Malpocker. The album, Washington Sings, was recorded in the WSU Recording Studio and published by the peer-reviewed WSU recording label.
At WSU, he directs the WSU Concert Choir and WSU Chamber Singers and teaches graduate and undergraduate choral conducting. He has been a David G Pollart Center for the Arts and Humanities Fellow, a LIFT (Learn.Inspire.Foster.Transform) Fellow, and is a WSU College of Arts and Sciences Excellence in Professional Service Award winner. He is also the founder and coordinator of the WSU Tenor/Bass Fest and the WSU Choral Leadership Retreat held every fall at various locations throughout the state.
Luethi is currently the 4-year College & University Choirs Co-Chair for ACDA and has served as the College & University Repertoire and Resources Chair for NW-ACDA and Washington ACDA. He is also the former Chair of the National Association for Music Education Choir Council.
He received degrees from the University of Wisconsin – Green Bay, University of South Florida in Tampa, and University of Illinois – Urbana/Champaign.