Master of Music
The Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University
Bachelor of Music
Western Michigan University
Douglas Brandt Byerly has been all over the world as an internationally recognized choral conductor, composer and performer. He's been commissioned by orchestras, choirs and churches as a composer and arranger. But to his students, he’s just “BigDougieB.”
“Students say I move fast, have high expectations and challenge them. They also say I am a big teddy bear and call me BigDougieB,” he said.
Byerly has taught chorus, opera, voice, composition, theory and music history at AACC for more than 25 years. He also has overseen the student performing group Opera AACC for over 20 years. He has proudly watched former students go on to prestigious performing careers of their own in the United States and abroad. He cited his students as “the reason I continue to do what I love.”
In addition to teaching, he has worked with all-county and all-state high school and middle school ensembles for the past 40 years. On stage, Byerly is renowned for his operatic and musical theatre performances, having performed bass-baritone roles from Mozart and Verdi to Sondheim.
AACC and the greater Annapolis area have provided Byerly and his family opportunities for both work and play. As a kid in Michigan, Byerly raced sailboats. Now he sails on the Chesapeake Bay. And BigDougieB isn’t the only Byerly with an attachment to AACC. Both his son Adam and his daughter Emma attended the college and have gone on to advanced degrees of their own.
“AACC touched both of their lives, and we are better for it,” he said.
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