Alfred Duckett, a native of Greenville, SC, attended Hillcrest High School and the Greenville Fine Arts Center where he developed a love for music and the arts.  Upon graduation, he studied at the University of Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music.  Subsequently, he received degrees from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts (BM), Johns Hopkins University’s Peabody Conservatory of Music (MM), and the Benjamin T. Rome School of Music at the Catholic University of America (DMA).  He also studied chamber music at Bowdoin International Music Festival, Brevard Music Festival and the Festival at Sandpoint, where he was chosen twice by Gunther Schuller to be a fellowship conductor and conducted the Spokane Symphony in a performance of Schuller’s Seven Studies of Themes of Paul Klee.

Dr. Duckett’s professional and academic experiences are richly diverse. He has served as Chair and Associate Professor of Music at Jackson State University, Jackson, MS; Chair and Associate Professor of Music; Cameron University, Lawton, OK; Visiting Chair and Professor of Music, Allen University, Columbia, SC; Chair of the Department of Visual and Performing Arts and Associate Professor of Music, St. Augustine’s University, Raleigh, NC; Founder, General Manager, and Music Director/Conductor of the Atlanta University Center Orchestra; Director of Fine Arts, School District of Greenville County, Greenville, SC; Associate Professor/Director of Orchestral Studies at Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY ; Music Director/Conductor of the Belleville Philharmonic Orchestra, Belleville, IL; and Assistant Professor/Director of Orchestral Studies at Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville, IL.   He’s had professional residences at New York University, where he twice served as Scholar in Residence and at the The South Carolina Governors School for the Arts and Humanities, where he spent several summers as a Master Teacher. 

Among the orchestras Alfred Duckett has conducted are: Baltimore Chamber Orchestra; Greenville Symphony Orchestra; Washington (D.C) Summer Opera; Gateways Festival Orchestra, Rochester, New York; the Berkshire Symphony Orchestra, Spokane Symphony Orchestra, the Metropolitan Orchestra of St. Louis, the Atlanta Community Orchestra, and the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra.