ABBA

Teacher and tenor who attended Columbia University, the University of Pennsylvania, and Temple University, from whence he acquired a Master’s of Music degree in the field of choral conducting.

He did his share of performing, as well, playing the title role in the Temple University Opera Workshop’s production of Albert Herring in March 1968. In November, he appeared as one of the lodgers in the Theater of the Living Arts’ mounting of Michael White’s Metamorphosis. Then he sang the part of Acis in the University of Pennsylvania Pro Musica’s presentation of Acis and Galatea at the University Museum on 8^th December 1970.

On 18^th February 1971, he again embodied the titular character in Francesco Cavalli’s L’Ormindo with the University of Pennsylvania Pro Musica and Concerto Soloists. He was Nero in a concert of George Frideric Handel’s Agrippina with the Concerto Soloists of Philadelphia on 16^th February 1972. On 26^th February 1985, he conducted the Germantown Friends School Choir in the Opera Company of Philadelphia’s rendition of La damnation de Faust of Hector Berlioz.

As a member of The Philadelphia Singers, he appeared on the Concerto Soloists Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia holiday offering, Gloria! Gloria!, recorded and released in 1987. Another recording on which you can hear him is Roberto Moran’s Rocky Road to Kansas, again with the Concerto Soloists.

He joined the Bucks County Choral Society on 8^th March 1992 for a performance of Le roi David at the Zion Mennonite Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. On 20^th November 1997, he directed the Choral Union of the University of Delaware in their holiday offering, A Ceremony of Carols. He was the Associate Conductor at Rowan University’s Pfleeger Concert Hall in April 2005 for three days’ worth of Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana.

Lawrence was a fixture at Germantown Friends School from 1971, when he instructed Peter Evans in the art of electronic music, until 2006, when he directed the GFS choir for the last time. On his watch, the choir got to travel the world, raising their voices in song in China, Europe, and Scandinavia. At his swan song as director, over one hundred alums returned to GFS for a chance to perform one more time for the maestro.

The director became a performer again at the 2006 International Trumpet Guild Conference, which was hosted by Rowan University in Glassboro, New Jersey. He sang the tenor solo bits in Sam Stalos’s mouthful of a composition, “Nobody Move: Seven Scenes Based on the Children’s Game Hide and Seek for Solo Trumpet, Chorus, Keyboard and Percussion”. In 2008, he took on another project as music assistant for the Keystone State Boychoir.

The Philadelphia Singers recordings

Adeste Fidelis (Frederick Oakeley/John Francis Wade)

RCA 6559-2-RC (Gloria! Gloria!)

Soprano – Benita Valente

Concerto Soloists Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia

Conductor – Michael Korn

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