Rehearsals:
The rehearsal schedule is following this successful format:
·Mondays at 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM with a break.
·The first rehearsal begins on the first Monday after Labor Day for the first concert of the season in December.
·The rehearsals resume on the first Monday after Martin Luther King Day for the second concert of the season in May.
·The rehearsals are at the First Church of Christ, 12 South Main St., West Hartford, CT 06107 in the Choral Room on Floor 2. Park in the rear and take the elevator inside the parking lot entrance to floor 2, or walk the stairway.
---A note of reminder to participants: promptness at rehearsals and for the performances is important.
Concerts:
Our Spring Concert-Sunday, April 11 at 2:30 PM- will be performed in the sanctuary at Westminster Presbyterian Church at 2080 Boulevard in West Hartford.
About Our Director... Fred North II (on Sabbatical)
Fred C. North II, is descended from an old central CT family. He attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from 1962-1966. He was active in the 50 voice UNC Varsity Men's Glee Club. At the end of his senior year they toured Europe, winning a prize in international competition.
Since then, Fred has directed and/or accompanied a variety of church choirs. He has also been a singing member of several vocal ensembles. He was Director of Music Ministries at the First Church of Christ in Simsbury and is not Director of Music at Christ Church in Coventry.
Having moved from Virginia, Fred and his wife Carol had purchased Northington House, his grandparents home, fulfilling their dream of returning the estate in new Britain to the North family. They recently relocated to Coventry, closer to family and work.
About Our Acting Director... Nathaniel Baker
Nathaniel Baker took up the piano at age 7. Since then, he has studied with Benita Rose, Margarita Nuller and Luiz de Moura-Castro and has participated in master classes with Paul Badura-Skoda, Diane Andersen, Dmitry Rachmanov, Ludovica Mosca, Watson Morrison and Adawagin Pratt, among others.
Nathaniel has performed throughout New England and in Spain and Portugal. During his high school years he won numerous local competitions, including the Eastern Connecticut Symphony Youth Orchestra's Victor Norman Competition(1st place in 2002, 3rd place in 2001), the Connecticut State Music Teachers' Association competition(Winners' Circle, 1998-2002), the Windham Regional Arts Council competition (1st place 1997-2002) and the Hartt Honors Recital (top scorer 2002, 2003).
He has also accompanied various local musical theater productions of Annie, Oklahoma! Bye, Bye Birdie, Annie Get Your Gun, The Sound of Music and Nuncrackers; has provided rehearsal accompaniment for the Connecticut Lyric Opera's Faust, Rigoletto, Don Giovanni, The Marriage of Figaro, The Magic Flute, Romeo and Juliet, Hansel and Gretel, La Boheme, and Die Fledermaus. He has been Music Director for productions of The Last Five Years and Smoky Joe's Cafe.
Presently Nathaniel studies Piano Performance and Music Theory at the Hartt School, is Music Director at the First Congregational Church of Canterbury and rehearsal accompanist of the New Britain Chorale.
About our Accompanist... Corbin Beisner
Corbin Beisner was born in 1988 in Las Vegas, NV where he began studying piano at the age of five. He pursued an interest in jazz and composition and shortly thereafter began studying classical piano. He has participated in the International Piano Academy in Freiburg, Germany, the Interlochen Music Festival in Michigan, the International Keyboard Institute and Festival at the Mannes School of Music in New York City, the Barcelona Forum Internacional de Musica in Spain, the Lake Como Summer Piano Academy in Italy, and the International Piano Festival in Obidos, Portugal. He has worked with several world-renowned pianists, including Paul Badura-Skoda, Boris Berman, Vitaly Margulis, and Leslie Howard among others. Mr. Beisner has won numerous awards including: first prize in the festival competition in Freiburg, Germany, premier prize in the Forum Internacional de Musica competition, the premier prize in the Obidos Piano Competition, and third prize in the International Liszt Competition in California. He was also a laureate of the first Fulbright Concerto Competition in Arkansas. He has given concerts around the world, including a series of solo recitals in Spain, performances with the Las Vegas Philharmonic and the Indiana Lafayette Symphony under Harold Weller, and performances with the Beth El Orchestra in Hartford, CT under Joseph Ness. Mr. Beisner studies with Luiz de Moura Castro and received his Bachelors of Music, summa cum laude , from the Hartt School in Hartford, CT.
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