She Sings!
She Sings! is a small auditioned women’s choir located in Kingston, Ontario. The choir consists of enthusiastic and dedicated women who, although diverse in age, background, career and musical training, all share a love of choral music. The choir supports new works, performs varied styles and highlights guest artists and living composers.
Under the direction of composer Martha Hill Duncan since September 2004, the choir has premiered and recorded many new works. The choir hopes to continue to grow musically through an eclectic and polished repertoire and two major concerts per year. Highlights in their first 5 years have included two trips to New York City to perform with Dr. Virginia Davidson and The New York Treble Singers, two collaborative concerts with the local Kingston band Fireweed and the release of their 1st CD Songs are thoughts.
Artistic Director
Martha Hill Duncan is thrilled to be directing the enthusiastic and talented women of She Sings! She graduated in vocal music from the Houston High School for Performing and Visual Arts and in composition from The University of Texas at Austin. Martha is an award-winning composer of piano, vocal and choral works a with many of these appearing in contemporary educational syllabi and collections. Her two-volume, Singing in the Northland for voice and piano, celebrates poetry from her adopted country, Canada. In addition to her composing and conducting, she is also a long-time private piano teacher, piano examiner for the Royal Conservatory of Music , clinician, and frequent adjudicator. She lives in Kingston, Ontario with her husband, Martin, and has two grown children, Alex and Claire. www.marthahillduncan.com
Accompanist
Clare Gordon graduated from Keele University, England in 1997 with a first class honors degree in Music and Biochemistry. Active in solo performance and accompanying, she won the university concerto scholarship to play Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue. While embarking on a career in music administration and event management, Clare held accompanist positions with Bath University, The Chandos Singers, Chippenham Cantata and Bristol Opera Company, providing rehearsal orchestral accompaniment for world famous pianist, Peter Donohoe's performance of the Busoni Piano Concerto in the 2002 Bath International Music Festival, and performing the Haydn Piano Concerto in D Major with the Bath Philharmonia.
Moving to Kingston, Canada in 2003, Clare has worked with Bottle Tree Productions, Two Women Opera Company, the Boys and Girls Club of Greater Kingston choir, Queen's Chorale Ensemble, and has performed at notable local venues such as St. George's Cathedral and Fort Henry. Also an administrator for Queen's Conservatory of Music, Clare is currently an accompanist for Cantabile Women's and Men's Choirs of Kingston, Kingston Choral Society, Kingston Chamber Choir, She Sings, Queen's Conservatory of Music and Queen's School of Music.
The Singers
| SOPRANOS: | ||
|---|---|---|
| Carol Allison-Burra | Donna Harrington | Deb McLean |
| Marcia Armstrong | Carol Holland | Penny McPherson |
| Pam Dickey-Young | Katherine Leverette | Margaret Peddle |
| Tina Fisher | JoAnne MacDonald | Cyndi Rigby |
| ALTOS: | ||
| Shelley Alkenbrack | Pat Garrod | Bonny Lee-Bay |
| Elspeth Christie | Joan Jones | Annie Simmons |
| Jodie Compeau | Leslie Kimble | Sue Waldon |
| Margot Coulter | ||
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Shelley Alkenbrack, has sung with She Sings! for two years now, and is thoroughly enjoying the experience of singing 1st Alto. She has sung in church choirs all her life, but is happy to be taking choir participation to a new level. Other interests are photography, gardening and family, especially her four grandchildren. Two of Shelley’s sisters sing with this choir as well, making it extra special for her, and they are indebted to Martha for the opportunity to grow and learn musically under her direction!
Carol Allison-Burra says that during her 40s she decided to rediscover the joys of her youth and one of them was singing in choirs. She joined a High School Choir, then the Kingston Choral Society. After a term on City Council, she became a member of the original Aurora and of Melos. Initially feeing like a choral kindergarten student, she had many moments of wondering what the #@&*! She was doing. She persevered with lots of support and now reckons she’s in Grade 3 and still learning.
Marcia Armstrong joined She Sings! in the fall of 2008 after moving to Kingston from Sudbury previously Toronto, Barrie, Orillia and Whitby.) Throughout her many moves, she has always been musically active in local community and church choirs, as well as musical theatre. Marcia feels that her tall stature helps her to reach those high notes..
Elspeth Christie comes to She Sings with no musical training whatsoever, just lots of experience singing in choirs for the last 45 years. She did take piano lessons when she was 14, a short-lived venture due to a lack of discipline and motivation. (She was 14 after all, and more interested in other things!) Elspeth is working hard to become an alto, having spent most of her life singing tenor. She is a retired teacher, a mother of three grown men, and married to another. She works at Queen’s University as a Learning Strategist in Stauffer Library.
Margot Coulter, With a great aunt who sung in the Metropolitan Opera, Margot comes from good musical stock. She discovered her own voice at age 13 when chosen to be an Amazon in the City of Fredericton’s production of the King and I. After a twenty year hiatus, Margot rekindled her love of singing with a year in the Queen’s Choral Ensemble, followed by eleven years with the Cantabile Women’s Chorus. Margot has always considered music to be one of her great loves in life, along with her animals, and partner Greg. She looks forward to spreading her wings in a new direction, and is thrilled to be singing with Martha Duncan, and the women in She Sings!
Jodie Compeau is a music instructor who travels to fifteen different schools in Kingston and surrounding areas. She assists teachers in preparing their students to meet current Ministry of Ontario music curriculum expectations. These students range in grades from junior kindergarten to grade eight. Jodie helps the students explore music using a variety of resources including voice, recorder, movement, and buckets! Her precision drumming troupes can be heard performing at school events, musicals, and even donating their time and talents by performing at fundraising events such as World Malaria Day organized by the Buy-a-Net Foundation. Jodie runs a piano studio from her home, is the director of her popular Creation Station Summer Camp which introduces children to the arts and the joy of playing an instrument, and is also a faculty member with the Suzuki Kingston Musicfest. Jodie has been a member of She Sings since the 2007/2008 season as an alto.
Pamela Dickey Young learned how to sing before she learned how to walk. After a brief flirtation with the idea of a degree in music she decided that teaching piano was not her life’s calling and studied English and Religious Studies instead. Singing is a welcome change from her day job as Head of the Religious Studies Department at Queen’s.
Tina Fisher loves music of all kinds though her credentials are few! She has been singing since kindergarten. Did you know if you sing with you eyes shut and your ears covered (and the rest of the JK class has stopped) you can wind up in the corner? An avid walker with a keen sense of humour, she enjoys writing poetry and has a penchant for theme dinner parties. Next to God and family, music is her life. She chooses to find happiness wherever she goes and whatever she does. Life is what you make it. As for Tina...She Sings!
Donna Harrington, née Kocher, spent her early years on a farm in southwestern Ontario, and her penchant for choral music began with her participation in the Listowel District Secondary School choir. She left the area to accompany her husband, Steve, on Canadian Forces postings to London and Borden, Ontario; Nanaimo, British Columbia; and Baden-Soellingen, Germany, before settling in Kingston. Somehow between packing and unpacking Donna and Steve raised three children, and they are now experiencing the joys of grandparenting. Since 1996, Donna has been working as Secretary to Kingston’s Chief of Police, and in 2003 she completed a BA (Honours) degree at Queen’s University.
Carol Holland has enjoyed singing all her life and was in numerous choirs and two musicals in school. Organized singing took a back seat to more education, job, marriage and children. Unorganized singing such as lullabies, children’s songs, singing to the radio and the occasional daring sing-song around the campfire became the norm. After a long departure from choral singing, she is having the time of her life and is so grateful for the support and patience of all the women in She Sings! who have made her return such a joyful experience.
Joan Jones spent her childhood and teen years singing in every choir that would take her. After a three decade detour from choral singing to perform in amateaur, musical theatre productions - everything from one of the many wives in The King and I, Gypsy Rose Lee in Gypsy and her Kingston debut as Mona in Delia's Hereafer Society by local composer Jennifer Bennett - Joan has happily returned to her musical roots.
One of the newest members of the choir, Lesley Kimble, is thrilled to be singing again after a 20-year-plus hiatus! Lesley has no formal training, but brings lots of enthusiasm! The mother of two very busy teenaged girls, Lesley works full time as the Special Event Co-ordinator for the City of Kingston, and decided it was to for some “me time.” She says She Sings! is helping her to rediscover the joys of her youth, when she grew up in a home filled with music of one kind or another and participated actively in school and community choirs and musical theatre.
Kath Leverette loves to sing, and does so at every opportunity. Joining She Sings! was a wise decision because she says, the fine choral voices that delight and challenge her in the choir, are topped only by the women who own them. As a teacher, radio broadcaster and grandmother, (not necessarily in that order) she’s fascinated with musical voices and that meaningful mode of communication. Singing is one way to make the road of life a smoother ride!
Deborah McLean says that she virtually stopped sings after being told numerous times not to sing along to the radio or sing in the church choir at Christmas. Fortunately for her, mentors and friends such as Katharine Smithrim, and Karen Llewellyn, encouraged and coached her to sing and regain her self-confidence. She sang in the choir at Westbrook and went on to sing with Aurora. She took drumming lessons. She taught herself how to play the recorder. She has conducted children’s choirs. But nothing beats singing! It fills her with a happiness and confidence that spills over into everything she does.
Before She Sings! there was Aurora...
She Sings! is the brand-new name of the group formerly known as Aurora Women’s Choir. The original choir, Aurora, was founded in the summer of 1997 by Martha Hill Duncan and Katharine Smithrim and was conducted by Kiev native, Dr. Nadia Izbitskaya until 2001. Aurora Women’s Choir performed a mixture of Russian and Ukrainian romantic and contemporary repertoire, along with many new Canadian works. The choir loved the romance, tragedy and lush folk harmonies of the Eastern European choral tradition. Nadia’s focus was a beautifully blended sound and the choir enthusiastically sang in Ukrainian and Russian.
Some of the highlights of the original Aurora choir included an invitation to Festival 500 in St. John’s Newfoundland in the Summer of 2001, a memorable performance of Benjamin Britten’s “A Ceremony of Carols” and many world premieres of contemporary Russian, European and Canadian composers. Aurora also produced their first CD, “A Night Before Christmas” during this time. In the fall of 2004, after two years without a conductor, former and new members desperate to sing again, re-assembled with Aurora singer and composer, Martha Hill Duncan as director.