Debra J’Anthony
Debra J’Anthony has served as the executive director of the Academy of Music Theater in Northampton for the past 5 years. Before joining the Academy, she served as executive director of the Shea Community Theater in Turners Falls for 16 years. During her tenure there, she was awarded the Community Theater Association Back Stage Award and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts State Senate Official Citation. In addition to her work at the Academy, Debra taught flute and chamber music at Stoneleigh-Burnham and Eaglebrook schools, and has performed as a musician throughout North America and Europe. Debra is a published poet, a former member of the Board of Trustees for the Springfield Symphony Orchestra and a member of the national planning committee for SWAN (Support Women Artists Now) Day.
Allison McMillan
Allison McMillan is Executive Director of the Providence Singers, a position she has held since 2001. She served as the organization’s board president from 1998 to 2001 and has been a member of the chorus since 1991. Ms. McMillan has presided over a period of dramatic organizational growth and expansion of programs that has come to include commissioning new works, choral education for youth, guest appearances, community partnerships, and professional CD recordings. Formerly a fundraiser and information resources director at Brown University, she was named to the Rhode Island Foundation’s inaugural class of Non-Profit Leadership Fellows in 2000. She currently serves on the board of directors of Chorus America, an organization devoted to strengthening professional and amateur choruses across North America. Ms. McMillan is a graduate of Brown University with a degree in music.
Pamela Mindell
Pamela Mindell was Director of Choral Programs at College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, MA, for seven years. Under her direction, the Holy Cross choirs traveled to Italy and Spain, as well as throughout the Northeastern United States, singing in such venues as Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome and Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City. Recent performances include a concert of Sacred Latin American music with renowned soprano Dawn Upshaw, Verdi’s Requiem, Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana, Mozart’s Coronation Mass, Beethoven’s Mass in C Major, and Osvaldo Golijov’s Pasion segun San Marco.
Prior to her work at Holy Cross, Pamela taught at Smith College (MA) and spent a year in Sydney, Australia, conducting and singing professionally. Since that time, she has been invited back to Sydney as guest conductor and soloist for the 2003 and 2005 Sydney Grammar Bach Festivals. Pamela has worked with a number of children’s choirs, including the Litchfield County Children’s Choir in CT and the Paradise City Children’s Choir, which she founded in 2001. As a soprano, Pamela has performed in several recitals with mezzo-soprano Justina Golden. She has sung with The Boston Secession and with Emmanuel Music in Boston. Finally, Pamela has served as Artistic Director of the Hotchkiss Summer Portals Vocal Chamber Program for high school singers for eight years.
Pamela received her doctorate in Choral Conducting from Yale University, where she studied with Marguerite Brooks and David Connell. She holds a master’s degree in Music Education from The Hartt School as well as a bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Princeton University.
Jane Money
Jane Money founded Boston City Singers in 1995 as a division of Pro Musica. In 2003, Boston City Singers became a separate music and youth development program with headquarters in Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood.
Jane holds master’s degrees in music from Auckland University in New Zealand; in music education from Trinity College of Music in London; and in engineering (MS) from Boston University. In addition to founding Boston City Singers, Jane is the Founding Artistic Director of Children’s Voices of Ireland, a program which united singers in cross border programming. She is a former instructor with the Metropolitan Opera’s Urban Voices program in Boston, and for eight years was the Director of Youth Choirs at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Wellesley, MA. She cofounded the annual youth choir festivals “The Big Sing,” and is a frequent workshop presenter and adjudicator. A native of New Zealand, Jane has lived and worked in the Dorchester community for nearly 30 years and has over 20 years experience teaching children to sing.
Susan Radner
Susan Radner holds a BA in Music from Westfield State College, and an AM in Music from Smith College, in addition to a post graduate certification in music from the University of Connecticut. She has taught music to children for over 30 years: in Springfield Public Schools for 30 years and Enfield Public Schools for one year.
Becky Rosendahl Isaacson
Becky Rosendahl Isaacson is the Director of Music, Organist, and Carillonneur at Trinity United Methodist Church in Springfield, Massachusetts, a position she has held for over 29 years. At Trinity she oversees a music program consisting of 7 choirs of all ages – 5 vocal and 2 handbell – involving over 100 people. She is also the music director for the church’s annual Boar’s Head Festival and plans the summer music series, “A Little Night Music.” Prior to her appointment at Trinity, Becky held similar positions at Westminster Presbyterian Church in West Hartford, Connecticut and Simsbury United Methodist Church in Simsbury, Connecticut.
Becky earned a Master of Music degree in Performance and Literature from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York where she also pursued coarse work toward a Doctorate of Musical Arts. Her undergraduate degree is from the State University of New York at Fredonia where she achieved a Bachelor of Music in Education, cum laude. Additional studies include coarse work at the Hartt School of Music and Westminster Choir College.
A winner of the American Guild of Organists Region II Student Competition Becky performed in the National Organists Competition in Dallas, Texas. She is a member of Pi Kappa Lambda (honorary music fraternity) and Kappa Delta Pi (honorary education fraternity.) She is a workshop leader for Children’s, Youth, and Handbell Choir and has been the director for many Choral Festivals. Becky is a member and frequent performer for the Tuesday Morning Music Club.
Ellen Shanahan
Ellen Shanahan is Professor of Music and Music Program Advisor at Berkshire Community College in Pittsfield, MA, where she has taught since 1983. A graduate of Smith College with both a master’s and bachelor’s degree in music, she studied under Iva Dee Hiatt at Smith and Jameson Marvin at Harvard. In addition to teaching music history and appreciation and directing the college Chorale and a capella singing group Berkapella, she also provides musical direction for Berkshire Community College’s student theatre company, the BCC Players. She has provided musical direction for over 50 musicals and operettas.
John Thomas
John Thomas, a resident of Longmeadow, MA, and is the baritone soloist at First Church of Christ in Longmeadow for the past decade and a half. John recently appeared in the world premiere of the folk opera, TRUTH, based on the life of Sojourner Truth and presented by Old Deerfield Productions. In that opera John originated the roles of Baumfree, her father, and the role of Frederick Douglass, the abolitionist and orator.
In addition to performing in Springfield’s Boar’s Head Festival and Handel’s Messiah with the New Jersey Baroque Chorale, John has also performed Williams’ Fantasia on Christmas Carols with the Springfield Symphony Orchestra where the review of those performances described him as a “warm, luminous baritone with impeccable diction”. He has also appeared with the SSO as Benoit and Alcindoro in their production of Puccini’s La Boheme. John performed Elijah with Lyndon Woodside, Director of the Oratorio Society of New York as well as having performed the same work with the Springfield (VT) Community Chorus. He has also performed with the New Britain Opera, Vermont’s Springfield Community Chorus, Brattleboro’s Messiah Sing and Dartmouth’s Handel Society, Concertato Singers, SummerSing and Chamber Singers.
John has organized and performed in benefit concerts for Springfield’s Open Pantry which have raised over $20,000 in donations and matching gifts in the past seven years. He has lead similar benefit concerts for Cellphones for Soldiers, First Church of Christ in Longmeadow and Haiti over the years. John studied voice with the late Ruth Morton and is currently studying with Karen Smith Emerson, the Elsie Irwin Sweeney Professor of Music at Smith College.
John has sung roles from numerous operas and oratorios. He has performed such opera roles as Marcello and Monterone in Verdi’s Rigoletto, Ping in Puccini’s Turandot, Valentine & Mephistopheles in Gounod’s Faust, Zuniga in Bizet’s Pearl Fishers, Germont in Verdi’s La Traviata, Count Di Luna in Verdi’s Il Trovatore, Dapertutto in Offenbach’s Tales of Hoffman, Boris in Rimsky-Korsakov’s Boris Goudonov, and Porgy in Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess. He has performed Oratorio works such as Handel’s Messiah, the Faure Requiem, Verdi’s Requiem, Mozart’s Requiem, Bach’s B Minor Mass & Christmas Oratorio, C.P.E. Bach’s Magnificat, Haydn’s Creation, Dubois’ Seven Last Words of Christ and as Aeneas in a performance of Purcell’s Dido & Aeneas and various Bach Cantatas. He has also performed selections from musicals such as Guys & Dolls, South Pacific, Phantom of the Opera, and Kiss Me Kate in various locales in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont.
