Jon L. Culpepper
Jon L. Culpepper, Founding Artistic Director, Conductor, and Board President of the award-winning professional choral ensemble, the Dallas Chamber Choir, is a first-generation Vietnamese-American conductor and music consultant. He is the American Prize winner of the 2021 Dale Warland Award in Choral Conducting, Professional Division.
Under Mr. Culpepper’s leadership, the choir has received international recognition by audiences, composers, and other industry professionals. The Dallas Chamber Choir was co-winner of the 2019-2020 American Prize in Choral Performance, Professional Division. It has been lauded by TheaterJones for presenting programs characterized by “engaging cultural blends, ebbing in and out of moments of high intensity and tender introspection,” with a sonority that “pours out like honey, with a protracting thickness of texture.” The choir released its first commercial professional recording of the Mozart “Requiem” (2019), performed Brahms’ four-hand piano transcription of his “Ein deutsches Requiem,” and performed at the 2019 Texas Choral Directors Association convention as the selected honor choir and at the 2021 American Choral Directors Association national convention. The GRAMMY-winning Houston Chamber Choir featured the choir’s live performance recording of Kim Andre’s “Flight Song” on their weekly podcast “With One Accord” (episode 97, 2021 January). Dallas Chamber Choir has collaborated with the Fort Worth Symphony, Hans Zimmer, and Ramin Djawadi, score composer of the “Game of Thrones.”
Prior to Dallas Chamber Choir, Mr. Culpepper served as music director at churches in Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth since the age of 16 leading chamber choral and orchestral ensembles. As a professional classical vocalist, he has performed as chorister and soloist with several professional chamber ensembles, notably the Dallas Bach Society and Orpheus Chamber Singers. Mr. Culpepper provides music consulting for churches, schools, and various ensembles in the greater Dallas-Fort Worth area.
Mr. Culpepper’s professional activities, however, are not limited to music. He has over two decades experience leading organizations in information technology (IT), biopharmaceutical, real estate, and non-profit / LGBTQIA+ advocacy domains. He is Co-Owner and Partner of Culpepper, Huynh & Associates (CHA) Business Solutions, Inc., a full-service, IT solution provide to SMBs especially in the specialty biopharma space; Co-Owner and President of J&J Culver Capital Investments, Inc., a real estate investment firm; and Founding Board Member, Secretary & Treasurer of Pride Frisco, a Texas non-profit, 501(c)(3) public charity serving members and allies of the LGBTQIA+ community of Frisco and North Texas. Mr. Culpepper holds professional certifications from industry organizations, notably the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy from the University of Dallas in Irving, Texas.