Music

CREATIVES IN PRACTICE: DANIEL PARSLEY

Boston University’s Director of Choral Activities traveled to Kenya to lead a week of music-making through the International Schools of Southern and Eastern Africa’s Band and Choir Festival, teaching and mentoring young musicians.

One thing that gravitates the next generation of artists to Boston University College of Fine Arts? Knowing that their professors, advisors, and mentors are also working artists, gaining real-world experience and bringing that back into the classroom through their curriculum, lessons, and talks. In CFA’s Creatives in Practice series, your favorite CFA faculty and staff members share the work they’re doing off campus, locally, nationally, and globally.

In February 2025, Parsley returned to Africa, where he lived for a year while in college through a fully-funded research fellowship, to lead the Pan-African American organization, International Schools of Southern and Eastern Africa (ISSEA) 2025 Band and Choir Festival. Parsley taught and mentored young musicians and managed programming and schedules for the week-long festival.

“It was an incredible experience. ISSEA does it well. They truly make it about music and connection for the students,” says Parsley. “It doesn’t necessarily always have to be for the purpose of becoming a professional musician, but more about the art of music and experiencing different cultures that bring us together.”

In this installment of CFA’s Creatives in Practice, Parsley shares more on his travel to Kenya – including safari trips in between events – and where his journeys have taken him.

Q&A WITH DANIEL PARSLEY

CFA: Tell us more about your experience participating with the organization International Schools of Southern and Eastern Africa (ISSEA).

Parsley: ISSEA is a Pan-African American organization of schools, mainly high schools and some lower collegiate-level institutions. Students come from all across Eastern and Southern Africa, referred to by their teachers. The students are in residency for a week in preparation for their final concert. They get to travel and do cultural activities. The location of the festival changes year to year from various East African cities. This year, we welcomed 150 students to Kenya.

In terms of academics, there are two separate tracks: one for band and orchestra, and another for choir. We bring in guest artists and guest teachers, and they have sessions on music-making and engage in social activities such as an international food festival, bringing 75+ different cuisines under one roof.

It was an incredible experience. I hadn’t been back to Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, in 15 years or so. The city has completely changed. Kenya had a renaissance of a tech boom. This is not the Nairobi that I recognize, and it’s complex and exciting to see what is going on there. 

This was my first year working with ISSEA. I look forward to collaborating with them again in 2027 and bringing one of our graduate-level choral conducting students to serve as an assistant conductor for the festival.

How does this real-world experience connect with your role at CFA?

With these professional involvements, I’m able to bring my conducting students from BU into these worlds. When I participate in ISSEA next, my goal is to bring one of my doctoral conducting students as assistant conductor. Most recently, I brought a graduate conducting student to Cincinnati to serve as an assistant conductor for the SummerMusik-Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra (CCO), where I serve as associate conductor.

Giving our students these opportunities allows them to understand that the world is much larger than we think, but also, we have the ability to shrink it and make it more personal and interconnected. 

I’m so proud of my master’s and doctoral students. While I was away teaching in Kenya, they led all the rehearsals seamlessly. They had guest teachers for academic and conducting seminars. All the conductors would send me videos at the end of the day, and I would give them feedback. It’s the caliber of our students. They’re on top of it. I came back to the States from Kenya, we had one rehearsal, and then it was concert time.

I’m attempting to make it a consistent thing where a student travels with me to take on the role of assistant conductor. I look back at my first time as an assistant conductor when I was a student myself. It was in Seoul, Korea, and I couldn’t believe the incredible ensembles I was working with — the National Chorus of Korea & National Orchestra. You simply just don’t know where things will take you. My career has allowed me to travel throughout the world and meet inspiring musicians.

What inspired you about this opportunity?

Seeing these students develop in a way throughout the entirety of the festival. Somebody who is very quiet at first, then goes on stage, and it’s just like bam! You see them come alive. It’s amazing to witness students go from one space to another and do it with absolute joy.

Something else that inspires me is reconnecting with former colleagues and meeting new musicians and educators who, funny enough, also reside in the Boston area. The band conductor of the festival is actually from Berklee College of Music. Our schools are right down the street, and we had to travel 5,000 miles to meet each other. The world is smaller than we think.

Doing some travel of my own and safaris in between conference events was also very inspiring. I took these photos with my iPhone!

What advice would you give your students about building a sustainable career in the arts?

You don’t know what your career is going to look like. I said yes to cover a concert. And that opened the doors for me to become the associate conductor for an orchestra that has one of the best summer festivals in the country. I get to go back home and do interesting programs on topics like asylum through the voice of Latinx composers and the social justice system revolving around equity. We get to collaborate and do concerts with acclaimed artists, like Babatunde Akinboboye, who combined his love for classical opera and hip-hop and created the Hip Hopera genre.

You get good at doing a lot of things. It is great to specialize in one thing, but to build a sustainable career, you need to be able to do a lot of things and be curious about them. I run a children’s chorus, have a church position, work at a major school of music, have a professional orchestra and choir, and I teach in these world-class conservatories around the globe. Some people might say you’re doing too much, and I would argue that we become so hyper-focused on one thing that we may miss out on experiences that shape our lives.

Any fun facts or other information you’d like to share about this work?

I lived in Ghana, West Africa, through my undergrad Xavier University’s Brueggeman Fellows Program. As a fellow, I was awarded a research and travel stipend and got to fully immerse myself in West African culture while working on a project on the idea of authenticity and research through a musical lens.

Who decides what is authentically Ghanaian? Who decides what is not Ghanaian? You have this Hiplife, Highlife, which are two different genres of Ghanaian music, and then emerging things of Western cultural influences, and so you have this generation of people that were trailblazers, referred to as cultural brokers, adapting and creating innovative music for a wider audience.

I recall when I lived in Ghana, there were no international phones. I would go to literal internet cafes and check my emails there. I would print directions to figure out how to get to my next destination. The exciting part for me is to figure it out. There’s adventure in that.

One of my least favorite memories was visiting Nairobi for a weekend, and all I remember from that trip was altitude sickness. It’s so close to Mount Kilimanjaro. I’m glad I came back to Nairobi for a more meaningful opportunity and didn’t feel any altitude sickness this time!

Daniel, thank you for transporting us to Kenya through this conversation. What’s next for you? Where are you headed next?

I was most recently teaching in London, Manchester, and Dublin in October 2025 at various conservatories. Next, I’ll return to Dublin and Maynooth in March 2026 to guest teach and head later in March to Colombia with one of our BU choirs as they have been invited to be the guest chorus for the Popayan Music Festival. I’m also preparing a one-week residency in April at BU School of Music’s Graduate Conducting program for my colleague and friend Andreas Herrmann, who is on faculty at Hochschule für Musik und Theater München, one of the top conservatories in the world, and with the Munich Philharmonic. He has lots to share and is preparing materials, primarily German-based projects, for our students. I taught at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München this past summer and plan to head over there again this summer.  

In September, our Boston University Symphonic Chorus represented the University at a college showcase held at Symphony Hall, where students from across Boston’s music community showcased their talents.

watch performance by the bu symphonic chorus

Music’s Next Generation – A College Showcase at Symphony Hall on September 18, 2025. Photos by Winslow Townson

Connect with Daniel!

Daniel is Boston University’s Director of Choral Activities and holds a dual faculty appointment with BU College of Fine Arts as Assistant Professor of Music, Choral Conducting and BU School of Theology as a Senior Lecturer. He oversees the graduate conducting program and teaches choral conducting seminars, choral literature sequences, and leads the BU Chamber Choir, Symphonic Chorus, Soprano Alto & Tenor-Bass Choruses.

In addition to collegiate teaching, he serves as Principal Conductor for the GRAMMY® Award-winning National Children’s Chorus, where he leads the Boston/New England NCC chapters.

Since 2019, Daniel has served as associate conductor of the SummerMusik-Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra (CCO). At CCO, he leads the We Are One series, special events such as the Walk with Amal project, and assists with an annual mainstage SummerMusik festival. 

Interested in learning more about Daniel’s career path or BU’s conducting programs? Send him a note at dparsley@bu.edu!

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This Series

Creatives in Practice: Joshua Fineberg

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