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J. Donald Dumpson, Ph.D., President/CEO of Diverse Arts Solutions and Minister of Arts at Arch Street Presbyterian Church, is the founding conductor of the Westminster Choir College Jubilee Singers, the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra Community Chorus and presently the Philadelphia Heritage Chorale. He has taught at the Westminster Choir College, Cheyney University, elementary general music and at the Philadelphia High School for Creative and Performing Arts. Upcoming presentations include conductor of the Black Diaspora Immersion Choir at the ACDA National Conference in Cincinnati, Ohio 2023.
Recent projects include, A Soulful Christmas at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, a project with composer Ari Benjamin Meyers, Curtis Institute of Music and Drexel University as well as projects with the Trinity Wall Street Downtown Voices and Bucks County Choral Society, Christmas in a Time of Isolation which aired on PBS in December 2020. A Soulful Christmas at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts 2011–2019, Chorus America 2019 convention closing concert, WXPN’s The Gospel Roots of Rock and Soul 2019, and The Movement Revisited by bassist Christian McBride’s He made his Carnegie Hall choral debut in 2001, when the WCCJS performed Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess under the baton of the legendary Skitch Henderson. Dr. Dumpson has prepared choruses for several Philadelphia Orchestra performances including the Marian Anderson Awards, Julius Rudel conducting Florence Quivar; Porgy and Bess conducted by Bobby McFerrin and several Hannibal Lokumbe premiers Crucifixion & Resurrection: Nine Souls a Traveling; One Land, One River, One People Yannick Nézet-Séguin, conductor; and Can You Hear God Crying with the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, later released on Naxos ArkivMusic.
He has conducted the NJSO and prepared the Community Chorus for performances of Mahler’s Symphony #2, Holst’s The Planets, and Al Jarreau and Peabo Bryson. He also prepared the NJSO chorus for Hannibal Lokumbe’s God, Mississippi, and a Man Called Evers and African Portraits. He has collaborated with Opera Philadelphia, Kathleen Battle’s The Underground Railroad and Breaking the Rules with Denyce Graves, Patti LaBelle, Chaka Khan, and Take 6, and Porgy and Bess with Jason Tramn and the New Jersey State Opera.
