Ruchama “Daya” Deuskar is a vocalist, conductor, arranger, psychotherapist, and Jewish ritualist who has had the honor of making music with the Chestnuts since Fall 2024.

Ruchama has previously studied all things choral, ranging from conducting and voice pedagogy to the sciences of seating charts and chair stacking, at the UGA Hugh Hodgson School of Music and Westminster Choir College. She also holds an MSS in Clinical Social Work from Bryn Mawr College.

Ruchama is the founder of Higher Octave, a psychotherapy practice and consulting firm in Logan Square. She often describes herself as a “traumatized musician turned trauma therapist.” Prior to becoming a psychotherapist, Ruchama was a private music educator in voice, guitar, piano, and songwriting; as well as a gender-affirming vocologist and life coach. Previous professional engagements as a chorister, soloist, and/or assistant conductor include the Philadelphia Symphonic Choir, The Thirteen, the Kinnara Ensemble, the Spoleto Festival USA Chorus, Princeton Pro Musica, and Theoria Liturgical Choir. She has also been a recording artist with The Westminster Choir, Westminster Kantorei, and the UGA Hodgson Singers.

In preparation for eventual pursuit of semikha, Ruchama is presently studying at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in the Binyan Program in Jewish Learning & Leadership. She hopes her religious education will allow her to fully merge her two careers as a musician and therapist into one. When not singing, psychotherapizing, or davenning, her favorite pastimes have included cuddling with her Goldendoodle named Shira, using the word “y’all” since well before East Coast white liberals decided it was suddenly cool, and ugly crying while reading Andrea Gibson and Mary Oliver poems.

Ruchama “Daya” Deuskar

Tenor, Conductor