Officers

Mary Brody, Chair; Lalitha Shivaswamy, Vice-Chair; Lisa Nappi Clerk; Joseph Horning, Treasurer.

Board Members

E. Wayne Abercrombie, Hadley, Mass.

A Professor Emeritus of Music and the former Director of Choral Activities at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Dr. Abercrombie is a noted conductor, clinician and workshop facilitator, with expertise in working with singers and students at all levels. He was a co-founder of the Children's Chorus of Springfield (MA) in 2007, and helped establish the International Federation of Choral Music’s program Conductors Without Borders. He is Past-President of both the Massachusetts and Eastern Division ACDA. Dr. Abercrombie received Choral Arts New England's Lifetime Achievement Award in 2013.

Mary Brody, Lincoln, Mass.

Mary Brody sings with the Metropolitan Chorale in Brookline, Mass., presently serving as a member of its Board of Directors and Clerk. She is also a member of the Board of Directors of Calliope’s Call, a professional art song performance group based in New England, and has previously served on the Board of the Concord Museum. She is retired from a career practicing law as a partner of a Boston law firm.

Thomas Cooke, Mystic, Conn.

Tom started singing as a treble in the boys choir at Trinity Church On-the-Green in New Haven, CT when he was 7 years old, and hasn’t stopped since. He co-founded the Hartford-based professional choral ensemble Voce together with its Artistic Director, Mark Singleton, in 2006. Voce, with its mission to Serve Harmony, is committed to building community and making transcendent music that touches the hearts of those who hear it. As part of Voce’s educational mission, in 2021 Tom worked closely with Bass-Baritone Miles Wilson-Toliver to create Voices of Hartford, which is designed to provide Hartford’s young minority residents with the opportunity to make music together in a safe space. In addition to singing, Tom is a classically trained clarinetist. He is a graduate of Harvard College and The Law School, University of Chicago.

Michael Driscoll, Somerville, Mass.

Dr. Michael Driscoll is Director of Choirs at Brookline High School, a position he has held since September 2003. At Brookline High School he directs three choirs, advises three student-directed vocal ensembles, and teaches Advanced Placement Music Theory and piano class. He also serves as Artistic Director of Commonwealth Chorale in Boston, MA. He is past-president of the Massachusetts chapter of the American Choral Directors Association and has been a member of the planning committee for three Eastern Region ACDA conferences.

Holly Druckman, Somerville, Mass.

Holly Druckman is Founder and Music Director of Carduus (formerly the Carr Consort), a chamber choir dedicated to exploring often overlooked repertoire from the Renaissance and modern periods, and is Music Director of the Renaissance choir Vox Lucens. In 2023, she was named Artistic Durector of Cappella Clausura, which for 20 years has promoted the performance of music created by women, from that of cloistered nuns of the 9th century to an increasingly diverse group of contemporary women composers. Previous choral engagements include conducting posts with the Commonwealth Chorale, Amor Artis, and the Columbia Josquin Singers.

Katie Hart

Bio coming soon.

Jonathan Harvey, Westminster, Mass.

Dr. Jonathan Harvey is Assistant Professor of Music and Director of Choirs at Fitchburg State University in Fitchburg, Massachusetts. He also serves as Music Director of the Brattleboro Concert Choir and the Brattleboro Camerata, both in Brattleboro, Vermont. He is an active member of Chorus America, the College Music Society, the National Collegiate Choral Organization, and the American Choral Directors Association.

Joseph Horning, Jamaica Plain, Mass.

Joseph Horning served for ten years as Music Director of the Choral Art Society of the South Shore in Scituate, Mass., and for many years led the choral program at Buckingham, Browne, and Nichols School in Cambridge. He holds a B.A. from Kenyon College in Ohio and an M.M. in choral conducting from New England Conservatory of Music. His business experience includes past roles in management with the Boston Philharmonic and in public relations with New England Conservatory. He currently serves as Chairman of a real estate management and development company.

Irene Idecheria, Melrose, Mass.

As Chief Program Officer for the Boston Children’s Chorus, Irene Idicheria oversees the organization's artistic and educational programs. Previously, she served on chorus's artistic team, conducting multiple choirs. She also currently teaches graduate music education classes at the Boston Conservatory at Berklee. A certified Kodály instructor, she taught general music and chorus at the Guilmette School in Lawrence, Mass. for eight years. A native of Bangalore, India, she moved to the United States to study music education at Gordon College, later earning a master’s degree in music education from the Hartt School of Music.

Amelia LeClair, Newton, Mass.

Amelia LeClair is founder and director emerita of Cappella Clausura, an ensemble of voices and instruments specializing in music written by women from the eighth century to the present day. Under her leadership, the ensemble has presented works by women of the medieval, renaissance, baroque and romantic eras, and premiered music of by modern composers such as Rebecca Clarke, Hilary Tann, Patricia Van Ness, Abbie Betinis, Emma Lou Diemer, and many others. She and Cappella Clausura received the 2017 Chorus America’s ASCAP/Alice Parker award for adventurous programming. She also serves as the director of Vermilion, a quartet singing a unique Unitarian Vespers service which she created. Ms. LeClair is a Resident Scholar in the Brandeis University Women’s Studies Research Center.

Amy Lieberman, Lexington, Mass.

Amy Lieberman is Head of Vocal Arts at Hebrew College, where she conducts the chamber choir, coaches art song, and teaches conducting. Amy was Director of Choral Activities at New England Conservatory of Music, and she has been Assistant Professor at Berklee College of Music and Wilkes University in Pennsylvania, and Interim Director of Choral Activities at Northeastern University. A frequent guest conductor and pre-concert speaker, Amy holds Mus.M. degrees in Conducting from the Yale School of Music and Boston University and an A.B. from Stanford University. At its summer home in the Berkshires, Amy conducts the chorus of ArtsAhimsa, an organization dedicated to the promotion of non-violence through the arts, and has given master classes in Anchorage, Alaska and Kolkata and New Delhi, India.

Nathaniel Lew, Burlington, Vt.

Nathaniel G. Lew is Professor of Music and Director of the Honors Program at Saint Michael's College in Colchester, Vermont. He is also the Artistic Director of the Montpelier-based semi-professional choral ensemble Counterpoint, founded by Robert De Cormier. A graduate of Yale University and the University of Cambridge, he holds a Ph.D. in musicology from the University of California, Berkeley. He has published on postwar British music and edits unpublished manuscripts of Ralph Vaughan Williams.

Cailin Marcel Manson, Springfield, Mass.

Cailin Marcel Manson is a sought-after adjudicator, master teacher, and clinician. He is music director of the Bennington County (Vt.) Choral Society, the Keene (N.H.) Chorale, and the Germantown (Pa.) Concert Chorus, and in the fall of 2019 became Director of Choral Activities and Music Performance at Clark University in Worcester, Mass. He was music director for six years at the Putney School, a private school in Putney, Vt. After graduating from Temple University with a music performance degree, he pursued graduate studies in opera at the Universität Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria, later adding a second concentration in conducting. In 2009 he founded the Germantown Institute for the Vocal Arts in Germantown, Pennsylvania, where he still serves as Director. 

Beckie Markarian, Nothampton, Mass.

Beckie Markarian is currently the Associate Director of Alum Marketing & Communications for Mount Holyoke College (MA). A fundraising professional with an MBA specializing in Non-Profit Management, Beckie has also been active as a singer in many community ensembles in New England.

Carol Marton, Jamaica Plain, Mass.

Bio coming soon.

Lisa Nappi, Plainville, Conn.

Lisa Nappi, soprano, received a B.M. from the University of Miami School of Music in Coral Gables, Florida, and then moved to New York City, where she sang professionally with Musica Sacra, Music Before 1800, New York Choral Artists, in the ensembles of minimalist composers Steve Reich and Phillip Glass, and as a soloist and section leader in the choir of The Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine. In 1991, she earned an M.M. from New England Conservatory in Boston and performed both as a member and soloist with Cantata Singers, the Dedham Choral Society, and the all-professional choir of Church of the Advent. Returning to Connecticut in 1997, Lisa sang with CONCORA under Richard Coffey for twenty years. She currently sings with the South Church Chancel Choir in New Britain and chairs the Steering Committee of The Music Series at South Church.

Laura Nevitt, Needham, Mass.

Laura Nevitt is a conductor, composer, and educator based in Boston. She earned degrees in Composition and Music Education from the University of South Carolina, and a M.M. in Choral Conducting at Boston Conservatory, studying with George Case. Laura is the Founder & Artistic Director of Lilith Vocal Ensemble, Children’s Chorus and Chamber Choir Director at New England Conservatory Prep, a Teaching Artist with Boston Lyric Opera and Handel & Haydn Society, and Music Director at First Parish UU in Needham, MA, where she is also Artistic Director of the newly formed “To The Fore” Concert Series, focused on bringing historically marginalized voices to the forefront. She is a Founding Member and Former Co-Artistic Director of Nightingale Vocal Ensemble, and former Associate Conductor at Voices Boston Children’s Choir.

Courtney Elf Rowe, Needham, Mass.

Bio coming soon.

Peter Pulsifer, Winchester, Mass.

Raised in a musical household, Peter first experienced choral music as a member of his church's children's choir, but later focused most of his musical energies on the trumpet. A transformative experience came in graduate school, when he joined the Tanglewood Festival Chorus (TFC); that led, after graduation, to many rewarding years with the Washington Chorus in Washington, D.C. Back in Boston, Peter currently sings with the TFC and the New World Chorale, and was a member of Chorus pro Musica for 18 years. He has served on the Board of Choral Arts New England, off and on, since 2003. He is current President of Boston Singers' Resource, which supports solo and choral singers throughout the region. He has a Ph.D. in Physics from Boston College, and has worked mostly in government-related scientific projects.

Jon Saxton

Jon has previously been a member of the Choral Arts New England board, where he served as Vice Chair and was a major organizer of the Voice for Voices capital campaign. He was a long-time member of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus and is currently singing with numerous choruses.

Lalitha Shivaswamy, Simsbury, Conn.

Lalitha Shivaswamy is both a singer and Board President with the Hartford Chorale, and her passion for choral music has been described as unrivaled.  In addition to her contributions to choral music in New England, Lalitha runs her own business and works as an attorney.

Ellen Gilson Voth, West Hartford, Conn.

Dr. Ellen Gilson Voth is Artistic Director of the Farmington Valley (Connecticut) Chorale and is an active composer, adjudicator and guest clinician. From 2011 to 2018, she was the Artistic Director of Novi Cantori, a professional chamber choir based in Springfield, Mass., that is known for its innovative programming of repertoire from the Renaissance through the present. She is a frequently-commissioned composer whose works are published by Oxford University Press, ECS Publishing, Colla Voce, and Santa Barbara Music Publishing. She also remains active as a performing pianist and organist.

Jana Walters-Gidseg, Greenfield, Mass.

Janna Walters-Gidseg (she/her), is executive director of the Pioneer Valley Symphony (Greenfield, MA), one of the oldest community orchestra organizations in the nation, which has since 1962 been the home of the dynamic PVS Chorus. Janna is also a nonprofit development consultant working with a wide range of groups on strategic visioning, financial planning and compliance, and infrastructure solutions. Formerly a choral singer and accompanist for musical theater, Janna holds an MA in Public Ethics from Université St Paul/University of Ottawa and a BA in Biology from Earlham College (IN).

Douglas Weeks, Mendon, Mass.

Bio coming soon.