PALS Childrens Chorus

Description

The PALS faculty and staff build strong, caring, and inspired relationships with the students. PALS feels like a family to many students, as they get to work with the same teachers for up to eight consecutive years. The PALS faculty consists of an array of brilliant and experienced artists, who regularly perform in the Boston area and abroad. Alysoun Kegel Artistic Director PALS’ Artistic Director since 2007, Kegel began singing as an 8-yr-old treble in the St. Luke’s Girls Choir of Evanston, Illinois, under the direction of Richard Webster. She recalls the experience as “certainly transformative, often transcendent. It kindled my passion for musical performance, and showed me that music has the power to nourish a child emotionally, cognitively, even spiritually.” Alysoun is an accomplished conductor, music teacher and soprano. While on the faculty of Phillips Exeter Academy, she conducted the Women’s Chorus and the Glee Club, taught a performance master class, and gave private vocal instruction. Alysoun also was assistant conductor of the Concord Chorus and directed the choral program at the Phillips Exeter Summer School. In 2002, as musical director of Whim N’ Rhythm, Yale University’s elite women’s ensemble, she conducted performances in Japan, South Korea, Italy, France and the United Kingdom. As Artistic Director of PALS, Kegel has prepared children to sing under the batons of Sir Colin Davis, Raphael Frühbeck de Burgos, David Hoose, and Bernard Haitink. She has led workshops on movement and choral singing throughout the Northeast. In her work as a singer, Alysoun cites the influence of conductors Simon Carrington and Robert Lehman. She was a charter member of the Yale Schola Cantorum, a 24-voice ensemble specializing in early and contemporary music. Alysoun maintains a career as a recitalist, and has worked in the Boston area as staff soprano at Trinity Church in Copley Square and at Church of the Redeemer, Chestnut Hill. Alysoun graduated from Yale with a Bachelor of Arts in Music and English, and is pursuing a Masters in Dalcroze Studies at the Longy School of Music. Johanna Hill Simpson Founder & Artistic Director Emerita One of the nation’s preeminent children’s conductors, Johanna (Jody) Hill Simpson has worked with young people of all ages and levels –from kindergartners through graduate students— at Dartmouth College, Lincoln Elementary School, Harvard University and the New England Conservatory. She founded the PALS Children's Chorus in 1990 and served as Artistic Director for 16 years, during which time PALS earned the reputation as one of the finest youth ensembles in the country. She has prepared children for performances under the batons of Seiji Ozawa, James Levine, Tan Dun, James Conlan, Marek Janowski, Keith Lockhart, Benjamin Zander, Stefan Asbury, and David Hoose. She also has supervised the preparation of children for the acclaimed world premiere of Shadows of Time by Henri Dutilleux, performances of Carmen on the Common, Tosca and The Little Prince with Boston Lyric Opera, and the world premiere performance of Boris Goudenow with the Boston Early Music Festival.

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