ABBA

Bass-baritone who attended Heidelberg University and The Curtis Institute of Music, from whence he acquired a Certificate for Advanced Vocal Studies. He spent twenty-one years as the orchestra administrator at Curtis and went on to teach church music and voice at Valley Forge Christian College.

One of the reasons he resigned from his post was so that he could spend more time performing. Here are some highlights from his busy choral career:

In April 2002, he was a guest vocalist at Evangelical United Methodist Church in New Holland, Pennsylvania, in a performance of Felix Mendelssohn’s Elijah.

He was a soloist in a performance of George Frideric Handel’s Messiah at the First Presbyterian Church in Allentown and Wesley Church in Bethlehem, in tandem with the Camerata Singers and the Pennsylvania Sinfonia Orchestra, in December 2004.

In May 2005, he performed in an all-Mozart affair at Montgomery County Community College in Blue Bell and Saint Mark’s Church in Philadelphia with the Choral Society of Montgomery County and the Philadelphia Young Artists Orchestra.

One year later, he was at the Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia in another Mozart concert, this time in celebration of the composer’s 250^th birthday. On 30^th November 2006, he appeared on Michael Udow’s Footprints CD, singing the bass-baritone bits of “The Shattered Mirror Suite”. He capped off the year in another rendition of Handel’s Messiah, this time with the Choral Society of Montgomery County and the Philadelphia Youth Orchestra in the Science Center Theater at Montgomery County Community College.

In March 2007, he joined the Tulsa Oratorio Chorus and the Tulsa Symphony Orchestra in the first-ever performance of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He celebrated the 25^th anniversary of the Choral Society of Montgomery County, along with the Philadelphia Orchestra, in a performance of Franz Joseph Haydn’s The Creation, at Montgomery County Community College.

He participated in a Main Line Ecumenical Choir Concert in March 2008 at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Wayne, Pennsylvania, in a program which comprised Dietrich Buxtehude’s “Lauda Sion Salvatorem” and Mozart’s “Requiem”. In November, he was a soloist at the Church of the Good Samaritan in Paoli in a program entitled “Psalms, Hymns and Spiritual Songs”.

He teamed up with the Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra in April 2009 for a concert performance of Tosca at The Forum. In August, he joined forces with the Auditorium Choir and the New Jersey State Opera Orchestra in a performance of Felix Mendelssohn’s “Symphony No. 2” and Giaocchino Rossini’s “Stabat Mater”. He appeared in a production of the biblically based opera Ruth by Philip Hagemann at Christ & St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in November and this was followed by another interpretation of Haydn’s The Creation, this time with the Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra, the Messiah College Concert Choir, the Susquehanna Chorale, and the Wheatland Chorale.

In April 2010, he was one of 200+ singers at the Bass Performance Hall in a concert of Beethoven’s “Symphony No. 9”. Most of the singers represented Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Texas Christian University, and University Christian Church, and they were accompanied by The Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra.

Richard is active with the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association, and has been soloing with them for a few years. He is also a member of The Brandywine Singers, the Musical Fund Society of Philadelphia, and The Philadelphia Singers, the chorus-in-residence of The Philadelphia Orchestra.

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