Lou De La Rosa

Member

Lou De La Rosa is the Director of Choral and Vocal Studies and Chairman of the Performing Arts Department in the Cilker School of Art & Design at West Valley College. His choirs have performed in the Kennedy Center and Carnegie Hall, as well as historic venues in Europe and throughout the United States.

Lou has taught music in San Jose for nearly 40 years, thirteen of which were at Abraham Lincoln High School, where his choirs regularly received first-place awards at national music festivals and competitions. He has actively served his profession on the boards of numerous organizations. As President of the California chapter of the American Choral Directors Association, ACDA, he led the founding of the California Choral Directors Association, a 501c3 corporation. As President of the ACDA Western Region (2020-2022) he led the five-state region through the uncertainty of the pandemic, first by establishing a 90-member COVID-19 Task Force for Innovation that provided resources to countless directors, and then leading the organization of the first post-pandemic regional conference in Long Beach.

He was twice named Teacher of the Year at his schools and was awarded the Outstanding Choral Music Educator Award in 2016 from CMEA (California Music Educators Assn) Bay Section, and the CMEA Choral Educator Award in 2017 from the statewide professional organization. In 2021, he was honored with the Medal of Honor from the California All-State Music Education Conference for “dedicated service to music education in the State of California.”