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RYAN BRANDAU (bass) joined the faculty of Santa Clara University as Director of Choral Programs in September 2009. He comes to California from New England, where he was Assistant Director of Choral Activities at Smith College in Northampton, MA; co-founder and director the Valley Voices, a chamber chorus in Massachusetts' Pioneer Valley; and choirmaster of the highly acclaimed all-professional choir of Christ Church, New Haven, CT. Previously he directed the United Girls Choir of North Haven and the choir of the Episcopal Church at Yale. He also served as principal assistant conductor of the Yale Camerata, managed the Yale Schola Cantorum, and taught counterpoint and harmony in the music department at Yale College. He remains active as a choral arranger, composer, clinician, and professional singer. He has performed with professional ensembles in China and Japan, and throughout Europe and the US. His arrangements and compositions have been featured by choral ensembles all over the country. Ryan received the Master of Musical Arts and Master of Music degrees and will receive the Doctorate of Musical Arts from the Yale School of Music, where he studied conducting with Simon Carrington and Marguerite Brooks. Prior to pursuing graduate study in conducting, Ryan attended the University of Cambridge in the UK as a Gates Scholar, earning an MPhil in historical musicology. In Cambridge, he founded a women's chamber choir, Conspiratio, and sang with the choirs of Jesus, King's, and Clare Colleges. He received his B.A. in music, magna cum laude, from Princeton University.
MICHELLE CLAIR (mezzo soprano) is a native of San Francisco. She made her singing debut at the age of eight with the San Francisco Girls Chorus with which she had the opportunity to tour nationally and internationally and perform and record with the San Francisco and Berkeley Symphonies and the San Francisco Opera. While a student at the University of California at Santa Cruz, she sang with both the UCSC Chamber Singers and the 12-voice UCSC Women's Early Music Ensemble. A regular member of American Bach Soloists, Michelle has performed Handel's Messiah, Handel's Esther, Bach Motets, Bach's B-Minor Mass, and Carissimi's Jephte. For the past 8 years, she has been reunited with 3 other SFGC alums to sing as one of four sopranos with the Schola Cantorum San Francisco. When she is not singing liturgies and 16-century motets, Michelle can be found enjoying the great outdoors in every way, including hiking, swimming, canoeing and wine-tasting...yes, wine-tasting counts as an outdoor activity! KELSEY LINNETT (soprano) CLIFTON MASSEY (countertenor) enjoys performing a variety of vocal styles with world-class musicians. Praised for his "depth of tone" by the Dallas Morning News and "expressive, moving" singing by San Francisco Classical Voice, he strives for informed interpretations of styles from the Middle Ages to newly-composed pieces. Known for a deep commitment to musical excellence, Mr. Massey is often sought for oratorio and ensemble work throughout the Bay Area and beyond. At home on the concert and opera stage, he has appeared as Apollo in Albinoni's Il Nascimento dell'Aurora with City Concert Opera, the sorceress in Purcell's King Arthur at the Bloomington Early Music Festival, and as soloist with notable period-instrument groups including American Bach Soloists, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Concert Royal NYC, and the Dallas Bach Society. He has collaborated with such renowned conductors as Jeffrey Thomas, Nicholas McGegan, Skitch Henderson, John Holloway, and Paul Hillier. A proponent of high-level ensemble singing, Mr. Massey performed with the award-winning ensemble Chanticleer with whom he sang in over 200 concerts at the Tanglewood Music Festival, Ravinia Festival, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Tokyo Opera City, and in a variety of the world's finest concert halls. With them, he can be heard as a soloist on their recording "Sound in Spirit." In 2006, a group of alumni from that ensemble formed Clerestory, an a cappella men's ensemble with whom he can be heard on their upcoming CD "Night Draws Near" available in October. As an educator, Mr. Massey seeks to instill a love of music and singing with young adults, and is often sought as a choral clinician and adjudicator. Upcoming solo projects include Purcell with the American Bach Soloists in February, and the Bach Mass in B Minor with Pacific Collegium in Spring 2011. Mr. Massey is a native of Dallas, Texas and holds a music education bachelor's degree from Texas Christian University and a master's degree in Early Music vocal performance from Indiana University, where he studied with Paul Elliott, Alan Bennett and Paul Hillier. MATT OLTMAN (tenor) is Music Director Emeritus of the Grammy award winning male vocal ensemble, Chanticleer. During his tenure as Music Director, Mr. Oltman led the ensemble through three critically acclaimed seasons which included over 300 concerts in more than a dozen countries. He helped launch the Chanticleer Live in Concert or "CLIC" recording label, which released some of the best of Chanticleer's vast trove of archival recordings to the public, and was the editor of the Chanticleer Choral Series, published by Hinshaw Music. Mr. Oltman first joined Chanticleer in 1999 as a tenor and in 2004 was named Assistant Music Director under Joseph Jennings, a post which he held until his appointment to Music Director in 2009. During his decade singing with the ensemble, he appeared on twelve albums and toured extensively throughout North America, Europe and Asia. In addition to Chanticleer, Mr. Oltman has sung in numerous ensembles including The Santa Fe Desert Chorale, American Bach Soloists, Ave, Composers Inc., The Yorkshire Bach Choir and Yorkshire Baroque Soloists. He has led countless clinics and masterclasses with choirs from across the globe, most recently conducting the Texas All-State Men's Chorus at the 2012 TMEA convention. He currently holds the post of Visiting Lecturer in Music at UC Berkeley where he conducts the University Choir and the University Chamber Singers.
JEFF PHILLIPS (baritone, founding member) began singing early in life, receiving encouragement to continue his training by ranking among the top 7th-grade cambiata tenors in western Tennessee; in Memphis he also made memorable contributions in guitar choir (and if you've never heard the sound of 40 junior high school kids playing "Proud Mary" on guitar, well, good for you). He gratefully relocated to the Bay Area in time for high school, where he sang with the Oakland Youth Chorus, the U.C. Berkeley Chamber Chorus, Baroque Arts Ensemble, Sacred & Profane, and most recently the San Francisco Choral Artists, prior to joining the Chalice Consort. Jeff enjoys spending his moments of free time with his family of five females (young daughters, cats, and his wife Katie). MARK SUMNER (bass) continues after fifteen years both as the Director of UC Choral Ensembles, Berkeley as well as the Director of Music at the First Unitarian Universalist Church of San Francisco. He has sung locally with Volti, the Voices of Musica Sacra and the American Bach Soloists and continues to sing with the Los Angeles Chamber Singers and their Cappella ensemble which recently won the Grammy Award for outstanding small ensemble recording. At Berkeley, he conducts the UC Alumni Chorus and UC Women's Chorale and assists with Perfect Fifth and BareStage, where he prepares the annual musical production, this year Sweeney Todd. In years past, Mark has sung with Dallas Civic, Tulsa and the Los Angeles Music Center Opera companies but found his true voice singing with groups such as Exindigo and Zephyr, a group in Los Angeles he co-founded. He received his music education degree from his home state university, Oklahoma State; his MM in conducting from Southern Methodist in Dallas, and his DMA from USC in LA. Outside of music, his passions include tennis, competitive bridge and theatre. LINDASUSAN ULRICH (alto, founding member) is a musician and writer known for her humor, her depth, her engaging live performances, and her absolute love of language. She is currently recording and producing her second album of original music, Consequences of Seeing in the Dark. When asked to describe her music, she calls it the songcraft of Ani DiFranco getting a hug from Celia Cruz and a tip of the hat from Stewart Copeland. Lindasusan is also an accomplished choral singer, and has performed with such notable ensembles as Philharmonia Baroque Chorale, Choralis, American Bach Soloists, Pacific Collegium, Midsummer Mozart Festival, and UC Berkeley Chamber Chorus, with whom she toured internationally. She has served as the section leader at St. Francis Lutheran Church for many years, and is proud to be a founding member of Chalice Consort. Music is not the only outlet for Lindasusan’s creativity. A published author, she is currently working on her second collection of haiku and a series of humorous essays. She also blogs (lindasusan.blogspot.com), paints, advocates for bisexual visibility and sustainable transportation, and knits a mean fisherman’s sweater. Lindasusan works as the Communications Manager/Writer for Horizons Foundation, an LGBT community foundation based in San Francisco, where she lives with her wife Emily. CLARENCE WRIGHT (tenor) was brought to church as a child with groups that only sing acapella. He was leading congregational singing at eight years of age, teaching music to the people of the church in his teens. He studied formally at the University of Oregon, Arizona State University, and with professional performers and directors of the Eugene Opera and Chautauqua Institution. A long and winding road brought him to eventually perform in avant garde theater and jazz cabaret. More years ago than he would care to note, he won the Marc Hopkins Hotel's 1st Cabaret Singers Competition which sent him to Paris for a bit. Later, he entered the professional choral music scene when he joined Chanticleer in 1992, although he would point out that Chanticleer, like Chalice, is really a vocal ensemble and not a choir. His favorite styles of music are Gregorian Chant, music of the Renaissance, standard jazz and Gospel. Clarence is currently, and for the past 7 years has been a member of the Grace Cathedral Choir of Men and Boys. REBEKAH WU (soprano, founding member) founded Chalice Consort with 7 of her musician friends in the bay area in 2008; Kaneez Munjee (S), Lindasusan Ulrich (A), Owen Smith (T), Carl Boe (T), John Gale (B), Jeff Philips (B) and Paul Kim (D & A/T/B because we only had 7 singers to sing SSAATTBB). You can read about the story behind it all here. Singing the role of Victory in Hildegard von Bingen's Ordo Virtutum with San Francisco Renaissance Voices in 2008/09 was an epoch in her music life. She discovered her love of singing Hildegard chants which reinforced her personal mission to bring pure-toned singing back to mainstream. In addition to performing Hildegard von Bingen chants as often as possible, she sings with EUOUAE and Cathedral Schola.
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© Chalice Consort 2008 |
