Garner, Kenneth

Tenor from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, who attended The Academy of Vocal Arts, Bloomsburg State College and Temple University, from whence he received a Music Education degree. He joined The Philadelphia Singers in 1977.

In 1980, he participated in the Chautauqua Opera Young Artist Program and became the tenor soloist for St Paul’s Episcopal Church in Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania. His first performance on the west coast was a Bach concert in tandem with the L.A. Master Chorale & Symphonia at Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in 1997.

On 2^nd December 2001, he was the token tenor in a presentation of Le roi David by the Philadelphia Chamber Chorus at the Lutheran Church of the Holy Communion. He played Damon in The Philadelphia Singers’ performance of Acis and Galatea at St. Mark’s Church on 5^th March 2004.

In 2006, he appeared on the Vox Ama Deus album, Mozart: Requiem and Exsultate, Jubilate. He helped them open their season in October 2006 in Daylesford Abbey as a member of the soloist quartet in Mozart’s “Grand Mass in C minor”. On 6^th April 2007, he recorded Verdi’s “Requiem” with the Ama Deus Ensemble at the Perelman Theater in Philadelphia.

Then he marked the 35^th anniversary of The Philadelphia Singers by serving up Franz Joseph Haydn’s “Missa in Augustiis”. On 6^th May 2007, Vox Ama Deus closed out their season at Daylesford in a wall-to-wall Bach affair that included his “Magnificat” and “Christ lag in Todesbanden”.

The Ama Deus Ensemble continued their recording output on 25^th April 2008 with a live performance of Beethoven’s 9^th in the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts. They returned to the same venue on 6^th November 2009, where they celebrated Haydn’s 200^th birthday in a program that featured his “Mass in D minor”.

On 5^th December 2009, he was a featured soloist in the Ursinus College Choir’s perennial holiday offering, Georg Frideric Handel’s Messiah, at the Bomberger Auditorium in Collegeville, Pennsylvania. He also spent ten years as the Executive Director of Chorus America, a group that specializes in helping out professional and non-professional choristers through the U.S.

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

Here’s The Philadelphia Singers and the Concerto Soloists Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia performing the first half of Ralph Vaughan William’s “Flos Campi” …

Sources:

Garner, Kenneth

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