Sharon J. Paul holds the Robert M. Trotter Chair of Music at the University of Oregon, where she currently serves as the Department Head of Music Performance and Director of Choral Activities. Her teaching includes graduate courses in choral conducting, repertoire, and pedagogy, along with conducting the internationally award-winning Chamber Choir.

The University of Oregon Chamber Choir has garnered international attention in recent years by placing first or second in five international choral competitions, most recently winning both of their competitive categories at the World Choir Games in Auckland, New Zealand, in July 2024. Previous competition results include winning first prize in the Chamber Choir category at the Grand Prix of Nations Competition in Gothenburg, Sweden in August 2019, taking second at the Marktoberdorf Chamber Choir Competition in Germany in 2015 while also receiving the Best Performance of the Compulsory Piece Award, winning the Fleischmann International Trophy for placing first at the Cork International Choral Competition in Ireland in 2013, and taking top honors in two categories at the Tallinn International Choral Festival in Estonia in 2011. 

Other international tours have focused on conference presentations and special performances. In the summer of 2017, the Chamber Choir embarked on a two-week tour of Spain, singing concerts in Madrid, Toledo, Segovia, Montserrat, and Barcelona. The tour culminated with an invited appearance at the World Symposium on Choral Music in Barcelona, where they presented two concerts, and served as the demonstration group for Dr. Paul’s interest session on the role an understanding of the brain can play in designing engaging rehearsal techniques.

In the spring of 2022, the UO Chamber Choir returned to Spain after receiving an unexpected invitation from ACFEA and the Order of St. James to perform Joby Talbot’s Path of Miracles in Santiago de Compostela, the culmination of a nine-day concert tour which included performances in Madrid, Burgos, and Oviedo.

In 2014 the Chamber Choir became a resident ensemble at the Oregon Bach Festival, performing each summer under the direction of conductors such as Matthew Halls, Helmuth Rilling, Jane Glover, John Nelson, Gemma New, John Butt, and Joann Falletta. In addition, they have performed at state and divisional conferences for the American Choral Directors Association and the National Association for Music Education.

Dr. Paul has presented interest sessions at regional, state, division, national, and international conferences. She appears frequently as adjudicator, clinician, conductor, teacher, and honor choir director throughout the United States and abroad. In 2019 she received Oregon ACDA’s Podium Award for “outstanding contributions to the choral arts,” and in the fall of 2014 she received the University of Oregon’s Fund for Faculty Excellence Award.

In March 2020, Oxford University Press published Dr. Paul’s book, Art & Science in the Choral Rehearsal, which features many of the creative and evidence-based teaching strategies she has cultivated over her career.