All-Ohio State Fair Youth Choir - Directors - Charles R. Snyder

Charles R. Snyder

Charles Snyder is the current director of the choir, taking over in 1992.

Charles R. Snyder received his musical training at Capital University, where he was a protégé of Ellis E. Snyder, a soloist with the university’s famed touring Chapel Choir, and for two years, the student assistant to Dr. Snyder in the voice department. In 1969 he served the Chapel Choir as associate conductor.

Mr. Snyder has completed further musical study at Kent State University, The Pennsylvania State University, State University of New York, VanderCook College of Music, Lutheran Theological Seminary and Westminster Choir College. He has studied with Daniel T. Moe, Leland Sateren, Richard C. Johnston, Fred Waring, Norman Luboff, Helen Kemp, John Rutter, Frauke Haasemann, Sir David Willcocks, Donal Neuen, Sandra Willetts, Anton Armstrong, Craig Arnold, Weston Noble and Paul Christiansen. In 1982, Mr. Snyder spent a fall sabbatical studying with Dr. Christiansen at Concordia College, Moorhead, Minnesota.

For two years he served as director of vocal and instrumental music for the Highland Local Schools in Morrow County, and returned to Coshocton in 1970 to teach the newly-opened Coshocton Middle School. There, for the next four years, he involved half the school’s 1100 students in five select choirs and three ensembles in addition to his regular teaching schedule.

In 1977 he joined the staff of The Presbyterian Church, Coshocton, Ohio, where he continues to serve as minister of music and education.

Mr. Snyder is the music director and conductor of the Coshocton Community Choir, a 100-voice auditioned ensemble he founded in 1971, director of the Coshocton Children’s Choir, a regional choir for young voices which he organized in 1988, and the Coshocton Youth Chorale made up of teen singers, which he founded in 2002.

Mr. Snyder has been a contest adjudicator, a choral and handbell clinician at area schools, churches and colleges, an all-county festival, and has served as musical director at the Coshocton County High School players since its inception in 1987.

He had conducted the chorus at Scouting’s Order of the Arrow national conferences, and in recent times has been a contributor and music editor for several professional journals. He is a member of the American Choral Directors Association, the Ohio Music Education Association and the Presbyterian Association of Musicians. In the Spring of 1992 he was selected in a statewide search as the conductor for the All-Ohio State Fair Youth Choir.

Mr. Snyder’s contributions in the area of youth leadership have been recognized with the presentation of Scouting’s Silver Beaver Award, the Distinguished Service Award from the national Order of the Arrow, and the God and Service Award for distinguished service to youth and the church.

In 2008, Mr. Snyder was honored as one of the recipients of the Columbus Symphony Orchestra's Music Educator Awards for his work with community music education. In April 2010, he received an Alumni Achievement Award from Capital University; a week later he was named Coshoctonian at the annual Coshocton Chamber of Commerce dinner.