Gregory R. Gentry is the newly appointed Director of Choral Performance at the ASU School of Music, where he conducts the Symphonic Chorale, teaches graduate and undergraduate conducting and literature, and administers the doctoral, masters and undergraduate choral conducting programs.

Dr. Gentry is in his fifth season (2010-2011) as Chorusmaster for the Phoenix Symphony. The 2008 world premiere of Mark Grey's Enemy Slayer: A Navajo Oratorio—with English and Navajo text by Laura Tohe—featured Gentry's innovative preparation of the Phoenix Symphony Chorus (available on the Naxos label). Also notable is his choral preparation for the 2008 Arizona premiere of Golijov’s Ainadamar with the Phoenix Symphony in collaboration with Dawn Upshaw and Kelley O’Connor.

The 2008-2009 season marks Dr. Gentry's debut conducting the Phoenix Symphony, with Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms. He appeared at Carnegie Hall for the second time in June 2008 to conduct Schubert’s Mass in G, while in July 2008 he took the Phoenix Symphony Chorus to the Colorado Music Festival to reprise their performance of Enemy Slayer: A Navajo Oratorio for Colorado audiences. He will return to Carnegie Hall to conduct Mozart’s Coronation Mass in 2010, and Avery Fisher Hall in 2011.

At the 2006 Western Division American Choral Directors Association convention in Salt Lake City, Dr. Gentry presented his research entitled "Baroque Performance Practice Exposé: An Overview of Salient Performance Concepts of Baroque Choral Music" followed by his presentation "Comparing four choral works with non-traditional compositional elements" at the 2006 regional conference of the College Music Society in Los Angeles. Dr. Gentry and Dr. Matthew Harden of the University of Nebraska presented their research on conducting with increased metaphoric communication through context specific somatic vocabulary at the 2007 Hawaii International Conference on Arts & Humanities and published their research in the spring 2008 Choral Journal.

Dr. Gentry has worked in many facets of choral research including his edition of "Dnes Hhristos" (Musica Russica, 2009) by Vasilii Titov (ca. 1650-1715) SSSAAATTTBBB, a Seventeenth-Century Moscow Baroque Liturgical Choral Concerto for 12 voices—originally premiered in Russian by the Oregon Repertory Singers in 2001—is the first-ever Western edition of this work. His edition of Jean Philippe Rameau's "Cor meum et caro mea" (National Music Publishers, 2004) SSATBB from Quam dilecta tabernacula premiered in February 2005 by the ACDA National High School Honor Choir at the American Choral Directors Association national convention in Los Angeles.

Dr. Gentry’s conducting technique has been primarily guided by studies with Eph Ehly and George Lynn, as well as work with Brian Priestman, Dale Warland, and Gary Hill. Both a singer and percussionist, Gentry has performed under the baton of Aaron Copland, Jorge Mester, Dave Brubeck, Karel Husa, and Robert Shaw. His own choirs have been recognized for excellence in cori spezzati-the Venetian Polychoral (double choir) style-of the 16th-Century Italian Baroque, while he has an exceptional affinity for Russian choral music, particularly of the Russian Synodal School and its performance practice. He is a proponent of the solo voice and emphasizes the use of vocal science as the foundation of his approach to artistic ensemble singing.

Dr. Gentry is an active member of the American Choral Directors Association, Chorus America, National Association for Music Education, National Collegiate Choral Organization, and the College Music Society. He is currently the President-Elect of Arizona Choral Directors Association and the founding director of Southwest Liederkranz.

Having taught successfully in the public education system, Gentry received recognition awards for distinguished service in music education from the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of Colorado as well as the Southwestern Division Conference of the American Choral Directors Association. Gregory R. Gentry received his doctorate and masters degrees from the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory of Music, and his B.M.E. from the University of Denver.