First Unitarian Portland

DeReau joined First Unitarian Church of Portland in July of 2016 as Acting Music Director. He was named our permanent Director of Music in March of 2017. He is also Artistic Director for Portland’s queer and allied youth choir, Bridging Voices, and President for the Association for Unitarian Universalist Music Ministries. He also served for a year on the Unitarian Universalist Association’s Commission on Institutional Change. Additionally, he sings with Resonance Ensemble and served on its Artistic Advisory Team for the 2022 premiere of Damien Geter’s An African American Requiem with the Oregon Symphony. DeReau was Musical Director for the 2022 Portland Revels Spring Production of Un Pajarito Canto and the 2023 Portland Center Stage Production of Choir Boy. Prior to moving to Portland, he served as Director of Music for Unitarian Universalist Community Church of Santa Monica, Choir Director for First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles, Artistic Director of Selah Gospel Choir – an interfaith community gospel choir (Coachella, RuPaul’s DragCon), Voice and Choir Teacher for New Roads High School, and Musical Director for classic theater company, A Noise Within (The Threepenny Opera, A Christmas Carol). Additionally, DeReau worked in Los Angeles as a freelance music director, vocal contractor, consultant, and arranger. He has worked with the DC6 Singers (SxSW, Jessye Norman’s Stand Up Straight and Sing! Tour, Sundance, Norman Lear, Jerry Kohl), Monkeypaw Productions (Get Out), HBO (All the Way), University of California Los Angeles (The First Lady), California State University Los Angeles (A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Forum), The Verdi Chorus, The RED Stamp (The Wiz, Ragtime, Songs for a New World), MUSE/IQUE Symphony Orchestra, and others.