Christopher Shepard, Music Director
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In recent years, conductor Chris Shepard has been closely associated with the choral music of Johann Sebastian Bach. He founded the Sydneian Bach Choir and Orchestra in Sydney, Australia, and was music director of BACH 2010, a project to perform all of Bach’s choral cantatas. Under his direction, the ensemble performed over seventy-five cantatas, as well as the two Passions, B Minor Mass, and Christmas Oratorio. A Sydney reviewer wrote of the cantata series that “these well-attended events, using a fine choir and perceptive soloists, are high points in our musical terrain.”
In addition to the music of J.S. Bach, Chris has conducted many staples of the choral-orchestral repertoire, and he has commissioned and premiered a number of new choral works in both Australia and America. Chris serves as Music Director of the Worcester Chorus in Worcester, Massachusetts, the third-oldest community choir in America. Since returning to America, Chris has also been a guest conductor at Emmanuel Church in Boston, a church renowned for its three-decade Bach cantata project. He currently serves as Music Director of St John’s Episcopal Church in Stamford, CT. Chris begins a new role as conductor of the Great Waters Festival Chorus in August 2012.
A committed music educator, Chris is serving as guest Choral Director at the College of the Holy Cross for the 2011-12 school year. Teaching has long been a focus of his career; from 1996 to 2008, he served as Director of Music at Sydney Grammar School, one of Australia’s most prominent high schools, and before moving to Sydney, Chris led the choral program at the Taft School in Watertown, Connecticut. Since 2004, Chris has been Music Director of the Hotchkiss Summer Portals Chamber Music Program, an intensive chamber music program for advanced young players and singers from around the world.
With SBS-TV, an Australian national public television network, Chris presented two documentaries: Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms and From Mozart to Morrison with eminent Australian jazz musician James Morrison. The Melbourne Age recommended the Mozart documentary as a “novel, thoughtfully produced hour”. In 2000, Chris was chorusmaster with the Sydney Philharmonia Choirs for their performance in the Olympics Opening Ceremony. Throughout his years in Sydney, Chris worked with a wide range of school and community choirs as conductor and clinician. He recently appeared with Alice Parker as a judge for Together in Song, a choral festival broadcast live on western Massachusetts public television.
Chris holds degrees from the Hartt School and the Yale School of Music, where he studied choral conducting with Marguerite Brooks. He is currently completing his PhD in Musicology at the University of Sydney, researching the performance history of Bach’s B Minor Mass in 20th century America.
Executive Director - Jane Colvin
We are pleased to introduce Jane E. Colvin, the Executive Director for the Dessoff Choirs. She joined us along with our new Music Director, Chris Shepard, as we enter our exciting 86th season.
Jane has recently worked for non-for-profit organizations where she was responsible for communications and development projects. She successfully conducted annual appeals, produced annual gala events and led creative efforts to increase their donor bases. For most of her career, Jane worked in the financial industry in domestic and international private banking where she was responsible for product development, creating marketing materials for trust and estate products, investment management and derivative products. She also conducted sales and product training seminars in the US and overseas and worked as controller for the international private bank.
Jane is music lover and an avid chorister, singing with the Brearley Chorus and the All Souls Community Choir in New York City and attending as many summer sings as she can. She sang for many years in the Katonah Presbyterian Church choir under the direction of Eileen Laurence and trekked to Salzburg, Austria with the Berkshire Chorale Festival to sing Mozart. She has a BA from Cornell where she graduated Phi Beta Kappa and an MIA from Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs. She attended local schools in Grenoble, France and Florence, Italy.
Steve Ryan, Accompanist
Dessoff is honored that pianist Steven Ryan has been its regular accompanist, occasional sectional conductor, and featured keyboard soloist for ten seasons.