Christine Howlett Named Music Director,

Conductor Of Danbury Concert Chorus

DANBURY — Following a year-long search, Christine R. Howlett (pictured) has been named the new music director and conductor of Danbury Concert Chorus.

Ms Howlett will lead the 85-voice, non-auditioned adult chorus in three major performances this season, including the annual, popular performance of Handel’s Messiah. The concert chorus, founded in the early 1920s, came under the auspices of the Danbury Music Centre in 1935 and, except for a brief pause during World War II, has been in continual existence since its founding.

Soprano and conductor Christine R. Howlett, was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, but grew up around Toronto, Ontario. She studied as an undergraduate at the University of Toronto, and earned both a Master’s Degree in Early Music Voice Performance and a DMA in Choral Conducting from Indiana University. She has studied voice and conducting with Alan Bennett, Jan Harrington, Mary Ann Hart, Paul Hillier, Drew Minter, Helmuth Rilling, Stanley Ritchie, John Poole and Carmen Tellez.

Ms Howlett is the director of choral activities at Vassar College where she conducts the Vassar College Women’s Chorus, Vassar College Choir and teaches music theory and voice. Her choruses have sung at Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall, and have toured in Italy, Turkey, Germany, Spain and in the USA. The Vassar College Women’s Chorus performed at both the National Collegiate Choral Association at Yale University (November 2009) and at the American Directors Association Eastern Conference in Philadelphia (February 2010).

She is also the artistic firector of Cappella Festiva, an auditioned choral ensemble with a 35 year history of performing in the Hudson Valley. In 2006, she co-founded the Summer Choral Festival at Vassar College and the Cappella Festiva Treble Choir, an auditioned choral ensemble for treble voices ages 10-16.

Ms Howlett is active as a soprano soloist and has performed in many works including J.S. Bach’s Magnificat (BWV 243), Mass in B minor (BWV 232), St. Matthew’s Passion (BWV 244), Actus Tragicus (BWV 106), Charpentier’s Les Arts Florissants, Mozart’s Coronation Mass, Britten’s Ceremony of Carols, Mass by Igor Stravinsky, and most recently, Poulenc’s Gloria. She has sung in ensembles, both as soloist and choral member, and is a member of Kairos: A Consort of Singers, an ensemble of 16 voices whose members are artists-in-residence at the Holy Cross Monastery in West Park, N.Y.

Openings, Reception Planned

Danbury Music Centre will introduce its new director with a reception on Tuesday, September 6, from 7 to 8:30 pm, at the music center, 256 Main Street.  New chorus members are welcomed to meet and greet the new director and current members of the chorus.

There are openings for new singers in Danbury Concert Chorus. The group rehearses on Tuesday evenings, and the first rehearsal of the new season will be September 13, at 7:30 pm, at the music center.

The chorus will prepare Pinkham’s Christmas Cantata for a November 13 performance. The chorus will also perform Messiah with Danbury Symphony Orchestra on December 16, and Poulenc’s Gloria and Fauré’s Requiem, also with the orchestra, on May 12.

For additional information, contact Danbury Music Centre at 203-748-1716 or DMC1935@snet.net.