Batcheller, James

James Batcheller is a member of the conducting faculty and Associate Director of Bands at Central Michigan University. He teaches courses in conducting, music education, and rehearsal methods, is director of the Chippewa Marching Band, and conductor of the Wind Symphony. Dr. Batcheller has ​also served on the faculty at the University of Oklahoma and was Director of Bands at Great Falls High School in Great Falls, Montana. He has published articles in the Journal of Band Research and the Instrumentalist magazine, and is a contributing researcher for the Teaching Music Through Performance In Band series of reference books. New orchestrations by Dr. Batcheller have been performed by stars of opera and the Broadway stage including Darius de Haas, Sarah Uriarte Berry, and CMU’s own Teri Hansen, and by ensembles including the Colorado Symphony Orchestra. 

​​He is an active, collaborative participant in music teacher training and professional development. Batcheller's appearances as guest conductor, clinician, and adjudicator have taken him across the United States, including performances and sessions at the North Central, Southwest, and National meetings of the College Band Directors National Association. An advocate for new art music for wind band, Dr. Batcheller has conducted premiers of several new works, including Charles Rochester Young's Tempered Steel for the Big 12 Band Directors' Association, and CMU Alumnus Rob Ash's Glory. He was also among the commissioners and premier conductors of Frank Ticheli's Symphony No. 2. Ensembles under Batcheller's direction have earned high praise from guest conductors and composers, including David Gillingham, Cindy McTee, Eric Ewazen, Daniel Bukvich, Eric Stokes, Chalon Ragsdale, William Wakefield, Col. Timothy Holtan, David Booth, Robert Spevacek, and Eugene Corporon. 

​Batcheller is a member of the College Band Directors National Association, the National Band Association, the Pi Kappa Lambda National Music Honor Society, the Gamma Beta Phi Society, and Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia. Dr. Batcheller is also the chapter sponsor for the Lambda Tau chapter of Kappa Kappa Psi Honorary Band Fraternity at CMU. He has been recognized with three awards for Excellence in Teacher Preparation from the University of Idaho and has been named four times to Who's Who Among America's Teachers. Dr. Batcheller served as faculty advisor to the University of Oklahoma student chapters of M.E.N.C. and the American String Teachers Association, and during his tenure in Montana served on the executive board of the Montana Bandmasters Association. In 2004, Dr. Batcheller was made an honorary member of the Michigan School Band and Orchestra Association.​

Recent Scholarship

"John Mackey's Lightning Field," Teaching Music Through Performance In Band, GIA, "David Biedenbender's Unquiet Hours," Teaching Music Through Performance In Band, GIA, "Morton Gould's Hymnal on We Shall Overcome," Teaching Music Through Performance In Band, GIA.; "Thomas Doss's Cantus: Song of the Night," Teaching Music Through Performance in Band, GIA.; "Biographies and Works for Soloist and Wind Band: Brendan Anderson, Jurriaan Andriessen, Keith Amos, Kenneth Amis, Leroy Anderson, Morgans Andresen, Tommy Joe Anderson," Teaching Music Through Performance in Band, GIA.​