ABBA

Alto who attended Temple University College of Music and studied with Julia Hamari, Michael Korn, Klara Meyers, Helmut Rilling, and Max Rudolf. She received Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees and went on to study for a doctoral degree at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana.

Her operatic roles have included La zia principessa in Suor Angelica, Miss Todd in The Old Maid and the Thief, Mrs. Peacham in The Beggar’s Opera, and the Third Lady of Charity in Rumpelstiltskin. She has also sung the part of Dido in Dido and Aeneas in concert with The Temple University Concert Choir. Other groups with whom she has performed:

Pennsylvania Pro Musica, Philadelphia College of the Performing Arts Chorus and Orchestra, and The State Choral Society.

In 1987, she appeared as a member of The Philadelphia Singers on their Christmas album, Gloria! Gloria!.

She helped The Bucks County Choral Society celebrate its 15^th anniversary on 18^th March 1988 in a performance of St. John Passion by Johann Sebastian Bach.

In the winter of 1989, also under the umbrella of the BCCS, she collaborated with bass singer David Fryling and organist Kim Heindel in a program entitled “Music of Maurice Durufle”, at Addisville Reformed Church and Trinity Lutheran Church in Pennsylvania. The program included Durufle’s “Choral Varie’ on ‘Veni Creator’, Op. 4” and “Requiem, Op. 9”.

In 1991, she interviewed for the job of choral director of the Illinois Symphony Orchestra, but because she was going to school at U of I at the time, she couldn’t take the job until 1993, in a joint agreement between the ISO and the First Presbyterian Church. This meant she spent one quarter of her time actually running the ISO chorus and three-fourths of her time leading the FPC choir.

She has since gone on to become the Conductor and Music Director of the Springfield Choral Society and Artistic Director and Conductor of the Prairieland Voices.

In her copious free time, she teaches voice at Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois.

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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