847.626.2115
Director of Choirs
B.M. (Music Education) - Northwestern University Bienen School of Music
M.M. (Jazz Pedagogy )- University of Miami Frost School of Music
Ph.D. (Music Education [in progress]) - University of Miami Frost School of Music
Andrew Dahan, originally from Skokie, IL, is the Director of Choirs at Niles North High School (Skokie, IL), where he directs all of the curricular choirs, and is also the head Vocal Jazz Director, and directs the award-winning vocal jazz ensemble Take One. In July 2023, he was selected to become the next director of VocalPoint, the most advanced vocal ensemble in the Midwest Young Artists Conservatory. From 2018-2021, he was the Director of Choirs at Highland Park High School (Highland Park, IL). From 2014-2018, he was Head of Music Education at Illinois Wesleyan University (Bloomington, IL), where he taught courses in in the Music Education program, including Foundations and Principles of Music Education, Choral Music Methods, Practicum in Music Education, and Seminar in Student Teaching. He also founded and directed the IWU vocal jazz ensembles - Unlicensed Syncopation and Vocal Jazz Lab - during his tenure there. In 2017, Unlicensed Syncopation was invited to perform as part of the JENerations Jazz Festival at the Jazz Education Network conference (New Orleans, LA).
Dahan has presented numerous sessions at the Illinois Music Education Conference aimed at helping choral music directors learn how to incorporate jazz into their programs, and to this end, has had the pleasure of working with many high school students around Illinois and Florida. He has also served as an adjudicator at the Tiffin University ProMusic Festival (Tiffin, OH), the Indiana University of Pennsylvania Cavalcade of Choirs (Indiana, PA) and ChoralFest Manitoba (Winnipeg, MB), and has also served as a clinician for the JENerations Jazz Festival and IHSA Solo & Ensemble and Organizational contests. He was chosen to present an interest session at the 2019 Jazz Education Network (JEN) conference (Reno, NV) about effective assessment for vocal jazz ensembles. He is a contributing author to the newly-released book Rehearsing the Vocal Jazz Ensemble.
As a director, Dahan has had the privilege of serving as director or assistant director of various choral and vocal jazz ensembles at the University of Miami, numerous ILMEA District Vocal Jazz Ensembles, as well as various Honor Choirs in Illinois, and most recently had the privilege of directing the 2020 ILMEA All-State Vocal Jazz Ensemble. As a performer, he has had the privilege of singing the National Anthem for the Miami Heat, as well as singing as a background vocalist for notable performers such as George Benson, Gloria Estefan, Ben Folds, Raul Midón, and Steve Miller, as well as the featured male vocalist for the Miami City Ballet’s 2014 production of West Side Story Suite. For several seasons, Dahan has sung with the Grant Park Festival Chorus (Chicago, IL) under the direction of Christopher Bell and Carlos Kalmar.
Mr. Dahan is the Vocal Jazz Representative for ILMEA District 7, and is also involved with JEN, ACDA, and the GRAMMY Museum. He currently resides in on the north side of Chicago, is way more of a Disneyholic than anyone should ever be, and enjoys playing tennis year-round. He is a graduate of Niles West - please don't hold that against him.