Guest Teacher

P. Dan Brittain is a native of Phoenix, Arizona. He attended Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene, Texas earning both a Bachelor of Music in Music Education/Theory and Composition and a Master of Music in Composition. He studied conducting, scoring and literature at the University of Calgary in the late 1980’s earning the Diploma of the Faculty of Fine Arts in Music with a specialization in Symphonic Band and Wind Ensemble. He has written works for chamber music, chorus, orchestra, wind band, and brass band, as well as several solo works.

Major Brittain served twenty years in the US Army, primarily as a bands officer. He also had a tour as Assistant Professor of Military Science at the University of Central Arkansas. He served as Commander and conductor of the US Continental Army Band at Fort Monroe, Virginia at the end of the Bicentennial, and followed that tour as Assistant Commandant of the US Army Element, School of Music.

Dan has been an active Sacred Harp singer since August 1970. He is a past chairman (1973) of the nation's oldest Sacred Harp singing convention, the Chattahoochee Singing Convention in Carrollton, Georgia. He has been helping re-establish Sacred Harp singing in the state of Arkansas by regularly mentoring a group meeting monthly in Springdale, Arkansas. He also gives lecture-demonstrations on the subject to interested groups. He hosts an annual singing in Harrison and has done several singing schools in recent years, including two 7-shape Christian Harmony schools in Tull, Arkansas. Recent years have seen him as instructor at Camp Fasola – a Sacred Harp singing camp in Jasper, Alabama, and in even numbered years – Chmielno, Poland. He served as singing school instructor for the third Ireland Sacred Harp Convention.