About
Dr. Douglas Temples is a chamber, orchestral, and new music performer fluent on both the viola and violin. As a chamber musician and advocate for new music, he has performed across the United States at festivals and venues including the Spoleto Music Festival, the American Viola Society Festival, the Southeastern Composers Symposium, and as a guest violist with the Durward Contemporary Music Ensemble. Internationally, he has appeared at the Steinway Gallery in Paris and the Festival de Les Nuits Pianistiques in Aix-en-Provence.
As an orchestral musician, Douglas has performed extensively across the United States. He currently serves as Associate Principal Viola of the Aiken Symphony and as a tenured member of the South Carolina Philharmonic. He has also performed with the Illinois Symphony Orchestra, Peoria Symphony, Greenville Symphony (SC), Augusta Symphony (GA), and Sinfonia da Camera, where he held a section viola position for five seasons. He has served as principal viola for the NorCal Music Festival Orchestra, Illinois Valley Symphony Orchestra, and the Midwest Institute of Opera Orchestra.
A dedicated educator, Douglas currently serves as Lecturer of Viola and Violin at Lander University. He also maintains a private studio in Columbia, SC, serves as co-director of the Carolina Academy of Music Chamber Music Workshops, director of the SC Philharmonic’s Soda City String Intensive, and is a Suzuki teacher at the Columbia Suzuki Academy. He has held artist faculty positions at the Augusta University Conservatory Program and the Carolina Academy of Music, and was previously on faculty at the Conservatory of Central Illinois.
Temples has presented masterclasses and recitals as a guest artist at the University of Tennessee, the Aaron Copland School of Music in New York City, and at the South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts. Recently, the American Viola Society named him an Emerging Teaching Artist, and he gave a lecture recital and masterclass at the AVS Festival in June 2026. Additional guest clinician work includes engagements with the Oldham County Arts Center (KY), Vivace Orchestra Camp (GA), Youth Music Illinois, SC Philharmonic Youth Orchestras, and the USC String Project. In 2020, he directed the Itsy Arts Program, a music-and-emotions initiative sponsored by the Illinois Symphony Orchestra.
As a chamber musician, Douglas was the co-founder and director of the “…and friends” chamber ensemble. A flexible ensemble that presented free concerts in Central Illinois from 2018-2022. He has also performed chamber music with members of the University of South Carolina Faculty, The DeCoda Ensemble, and principal musicians of the Colorado Symphony and the Florida Orchestra. He was also a member of the University of South Carolina Graduate String Quartet from 2023-2026.
Temples earned his Bachelor of Music as an honors student from the University of Tennessee Knoxville, studying under Hillary Herndon. He received his Masters of Music from Illinois State University where he was a graduate assistant studying with professor Dr. Katherine Lewis. He is recently completed a Doctorate of Musical Arts at the University of South Carolina as teaching assistant to Dr. Daniel Sweaney. Other mentors include Dr. Glenn Block (Conducting), Katie Dey, and Dr. Laura Tomlin.