Vermont ACDA Board Members; Repertoire & Standards Chairs 2011-2012
President
Sherrill Blodget
Fine Arts Center, Castleton State College
45 Alumni Drive Castleton, VT 05735
802.468.1322
sherrill.blodget [@] castleton.edu
Sherrill Blodget is the Director of Choral Activities at Castleton State College where she directs the Collegiate Chorale and The Castleton Chamber Singers, and teaches voice, conducting, vocal pedagogy, music appreciation, and global music. Dr. Blodget has directed university, community, church, and high school choirs across the United States, working with a wide spectrum of abilities and ages. She is in demand as an adjudicator, clinician and guest conductor, and serves as the Vermont representative on the National Board of the National Collegiate Choral Organization (NCCO). She actively pursues research on the music of viceroyal Mexico, and has presented her work at the 2006 and 2008 International Symposiums on Latin American Choral Music held at the University of Arizona. She will present on her edition of Los Maitines de Nuestra Señora de la Concepción (1768) by Ignacio de Jerusalem at the research forum of the 2010 Eastern Division ACDA. Blodget holds a DMA from the University of Arizona, MM in Choral Conducting from the University of Oregon, and MM in Music Education from the Pennsylvania State University. She was appointed to the Castleton faculty in 2008.
President Elect 2012
Jeffrey Buettner
Department of Music, Middlebury College
Mahaney Center for the Arts
72 Porter Field Rd Middlebury, VT 05753
802.453.5938
buettner [@] middlebury.edu
Jeffrey Buettner conducts the Middlebury College Choir, Glee Clubs and Chapel Choir. At Middlebury he teaches musicianship, fundamental music theory, arranging, and his own course “Everything A Cappella,” in which students study the history of Western European and American music traditions through the repertoire and presentation of a cappella ensembles and through creative a cappella projects. Jeff’s musical interests also include music of Ukrainian Roma (“Gypsy Choirs”), 17th and 18th century European music, ethnic music, soul and funk. Jeff Buettner is the founding conductor of the Vermont Youth Orchestra Chorus and Concert Chorale. He is a member of the American Choral Directors Association, the National Collegiate Choral Organization and the College Music Society. Professor Buettner was a Fulbright scholar fall of 2010 to the I. Kotlyarevski Kharkov State University of Arts in Kharkov, Ukraine where he taught American choral music and tradition, and conducting. He also received a Whiting Foundation grant to study 16th- and 17th-century counterpoint in Leipzig and London. He was selected to conduct at the Philadelphia Bach Institute with Helmuth Rilling in February, 2010. In summer 2009 he served as Artistic Director of “Heritage in Harmony,” a cultural exchange program for high school students from Vermont, Quebec and France. Jeff has conducted at Simpson, Hope and Earlham Colleges, and prepared opera and oratorio for the Rome Festival (Italy), Middlebury Opera Company, Brevard Music Center, Des Moines Metro Opera, Richmond Symphony (IN) and Cincinnati May Festival. He has conducted regional and all-state choral festivals in the Midwest and Northeast.
Past-President; Treasurer; Membership Chair
Frank Whitcomb
12 Stone Drive Colchester, VT 05446
802.734.2871
facm [@] aol.com
Frank Whitcomb has taught in the Burlington Public Schools in Vermont for 10 years, teaching classes in AP Music Theory and Music Literature. He also conducts the Concert Chorus and the select 16 voice Madrigal Singers, and has also acted as rehearsal accompanist or orchestra conductor of the annual musical productions at Burlington High School. Prior to teaching at Burlington, Frank taught for 21 years at Colchester High School in Colchester, Vermont. Frank has been very active in music organizations over the years and was for many years the manager of the Champlain Valley District Choral Festival. He has managed the Vermont All State Music Festival Chorus and Orchestra and has managed the New England Music Festival Chorus for eight years. He has been active as an accompanist for many young musicians and presently acts as the long standing accompanist for the Colchester Community Chorus. Presently, Frank is serving as President of the New England Music Festival and his second as President of the Vermont chapter of the American Choral Director’s Association.
past membership chair: Donna Costes
Secretary
Aimee Bushey
abushey @ sbschools.net
Ms. Bushey holds degrees in Music Education from Duquesne University and the Eastman School of Music. She has been a choral music educator for 17 years, 16 of which have been in the state of Vermont and 13 of those serving the students and community of South Burlington where she is the Choral Educator for students in grades 7-12. Ms. Bushey has been an active adjudicator for the Vermont All-State Music Festival and the New England Music Festival. She served the American Choral Director’s Association for three years as the Eastern Division Repertoire and Standards Chairperson for High School Choirs and is currently serving on the Vermont Chapter of the American Choral Director’s Choral Association’s executive board. She is a long-time member of the Oriana Singers of Vermont and enjoys a few private students when she has the time.
past secretary: Karen Jordan
Boys’ / Men’s / Barbershop Choirs
Dan Graves
Rutland High School
22 Stratton Road
802.770.1132
dan_graves [@] comcast.net
Daniel Graves is a native and life-long resident of Rutland, Vermont. Dan directs the Rutland High School Chamber Singers, Choir, Chorale, and the Rutland Middle School Chorus, in addition to teaching General Music. He has served as Advisor for the RHS Tri-M Music Honor Society for five years, and the RHS Malestroms (boys’ a cappella club) for seven years. Dan served as General Music teacher (K-12) and Choral Director for schools in West Rutland, Clarendon, and Rutland Town, before twelve years at Rutland Middle School and six years at Rutland High School. He holds a Master of Music Education degree from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Dan formed the Curbstone Chorus (Chapter K-108 of the Barbershop Harmony Society), currently in its sixth year. This men’s harmony group performs often in concert and community venues. The Curbstone Chorus sponsors Rutland area students’ participation in the BHS Northeast District “Harmony Explosion,” a three-day summer camp for a cappella singers at Worcester State College in Massachusetts. Dan performs professionally as a piano soloist, and accompanies music festival choruses. He also has served as Assistant Director and Resident Composer for the Rutland City Band, where he played tenor sax for twelve years. He composes for brass ensembles, woodwind ensembles, concert band, orchestra, jazz band, chorus, and piano. Some of his original compositions are published through Puna Music.
past chair: Allyson Ledoux
Children and Middle School Choirs
Susan Cherry
49 Frost Ave.
St. Johnsbury, VT 05819
802.748.2538
cherrysam [@] kingcon.com
Susan Cherry lives in St. Johnsbury, VT and taught general and choral music as well as theater in the St. Johnsbury School District for over twenty five years. She has researched new techniques for integrating the arts into all subject areas. In addition to teaching, she has written children’s musicals; taught voice, piano and guitar privately in her home; directed the Lebanon Community Chorus in New Hampshire; and played the organ for several services each weekend. She is a frequently requested guest conductor at children’s and middle school music festivals around New England. Susan holds a Master of Music Education degree from Westminster Choir College in Princeton, NJ and has conducted workshops for various music and arts conferences around Vermont and New Hampshire. In addition to her interests in music, Susan volunteers for the American Field Service Intercultural Programs. She has been recognized as UVM Teacher of the Year, Outstanding Music Educator by the Vermont Alliance for Arts Educators, serves as the Repertoire and Standards Chair for Children’s and Middle School Music for the Vermont Chapter of the American Choral Directors Association and is the General Music Chair for the Vermont Music Educator’s Association.
College and University Choirs
Nathaniel Lew
St Michaels College Box 377
1 Winooski Park
Colchester, VT 05439
nlew [@] smcvt.edu
Raised in Larchmont, New York, Nathaniel G. Lew recalls singing his first solo (“Dayeinu”) in third grade, and has been singing seriously since the age of twelve, when he sang the treble solos in Leonard Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms and Benjamin Britten’s Ceremony of Carols with the Juilliard Pre-College Chorus. His voice then changed, but, undaunted, he went on to sing tenor with the Yale Glee Club, the Choir of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, and the UC Berkeley Chamber Chorus, incidentally picking up various degrees in Music from the same institutions.
In a decade spent in the San Francisco Bay Area, Nathaniel sang with the Philharmonia Chorale and Volti (the San Francisco Chamber Singers) among other ensembles. He served as director of Ars Subtilior Medieval Vocal Ensemble, Vox Populi Renaissance Vocal Ensemble, the UC Berkeley Chorus, the Chorus of Festival Opera of Walnut Creek, and the Choir of Montclair Presbyterian Church in Oakland, for whom he prepared performing editions of little-known sacred works such as Gustav Holst’s The Coming of Christ and Camille Saint-Saëns’s Coeli enarrant.
Nathaniel holds a Ph.D. in the History of Music from UC Berkeley. His research focuses on twentieth-century British music, a topic on which he has published articles and presented papers at national and international conferences. He is currently editing several unpublished sets of theatrical incidental music by Ralph Vaughan Williams for Promethean Press. The first of these scores, Scenes from Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, came out in 2009.
Nathaniel came to Saint Michael’s College in Colchester, Vermont, in 2002. As Associate Professor of Fine Arts (Music), he teaches music history, music theory, and humanities, and directs the College’s choral program. In this latter capacity, he has commissioned a series of choral compositions, including a work by legendary American minimalist Terry Riley and several works by Vermont composers. Nathaniel and the Chorale are now embarking on a survey of the choral works of the Austrian composer Richard Stoehr, who spent his final decades in Burlington. Nathaniel also sings in, and is an Assistant Director of, the twelve-voice Vermont-based vocal ensemble Counterpoint, under the direction of Robert De Cormier. Currently Nathaniel’s favorite singer is his Max, who marches all over the house (and Church Street) singing “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad” and other favorites at the top of his lungs.
Community Choirs
Piero Bonamico
maestro4332 [@] me.com
Piero Bonamico leads a diverse musical life from his home in central Vermont. He has conducted the Mad River Chorale since 1996. Its recent repertoire includes Mozart’s Requiem (2006), Mendelssohn’s Elijah (2006), Rossini’s Petite Messe Solennelle (2007), U.S. premieres of Christoph Schönherr’s Magnificat, the Groovy Version of Ox (2007), and Peter Schindler’s Missa in Jazz (2009) and Glenn McClure’s mass Saint Francis in the Americas (2008) at which the composer himself performed and declared the choir “terrific” and the performance “among the best he had heard.” In 2009 Mr. Bonamico was appointed conductor of the South Burlington Community Chorus and he founded the Young Singers Chorus of Vermont where he conducts two of the ensembles. Mr. Bonamico has served as musical director for some twenty musical theater shows. He is an active guest conductor at festivals and workshops. Mr. Bonamico performs regularly as a solo vocalist and is a founding member of Counterpoint. He made his New York solo debut in The Vegas Show at the Laurie Beechman Theater on West 42nd Street and his Boston debut in Act IV, A Night of Music and Musings at the renowned Sculler’s Jazz Club. The Vegas Show was his third project with New York jazz pianist Gregory Toroian following A Night of Italian Song (2007) and Songs You’ll Know (2004). In 2009 Mr. Bonamico was a featured act in the Provincetown cabaret festival alongside cabaret legends Billy Stritch and Jim Caruso, and in August 2010 participated in the prestigious International Cabaret Conference at Yale. Mr. Bonamico co-authored with conductor Donald Neuen the collegiate textbook Choral Concepts (Wadsworth, 2002), and edited or co-authored other publications including: Artistic Musical Conducting (Neuen, DVD, 2003), Empower the Choir (Neuen, Textbook, 2004), Choral Excellence for Treble Voices (Marie Stultz, Textbook, 2006) and Success for Adolescent Singers (Patrick Freer, DVD, 2006).
past community chorus chair: Sherrill Blodget
High School Choirs
Glory Douglass Reinstein
362 Braeloch Rd.
Colchester, VT 05446
802.857-7000 ext. 1581 (office)
greinstein [@] ccsuvt.org (school)
gloryl [@] comcast.net
Glory Reinstein received her B.S. in Music Education from the University of Vermont and her Masters Degree in Music Education at Central Connecticut State University in New Britain, Connecticut. She presently teaches vocal/choral music as well as other music electives at Essex High School. Glory has conducted church choirs and been involved in community musical theater throughout her career. She has been an adjudicator and guest conductor throughout Vermont and Northern New York. Glory is a former President of the Vermont Chapter of American Choral Directors’ Association and the Vermont Music Educators’ Association and presently serves on both boards. Her awards include being named the 1997–1998 Vermont Music Educator of the Year, the 1998–1999 North Country Union High School Teacher of the Year, and the 2007 Vermont Arts Alliance award recipient. She sings with and is the assistant conductor for Bella Voce Women’s Choir of Vermont.
Jazz Choirs
Kristin Cimonetti
Mill River Union High School
2321 Middle Road
North Clarendon, VT 05759
(802)-775-1925
kcimonetti [@] rssu.org
Kristin Cimonetti is the vocal/choral music teacher at Mill River Union High School where she conducts the 7th and 8th Grade Junior Chorus and the 9th-12th Grade Senior Chorus. She also conducts four auditioned ensembles which include Vivace, Women’s Ensemble, Men’s Ensemble, and the Chamber Singers. She received her BMus in Music Education from Houghton College and Masters in Education from State University of New York at Stony Brook. Her students have been placed in District, All-County, All-State, New England, ACDA, and All-Eastern choral festivals. Her choruses have received the highest honors at state and regional competitions. Kristin has also served as an adjudicator, accompanist and guest conductor at many choral festivals.
past chair: Megan LaRose
Music in Worship
Lori Routhier
29 Madison St.
Rutland, VT 05701
802.293.2215
llmrmusic [@] vermontel.net
Lori Routhier has been an active musician in Vermont for many years now, having been involved in the music ministry of late at the Immaculate Heart of Mary Roman Catholic Church in Rutland, Vermont. Lori is a gifted choral director, music educator and spiritual director and has shared her very special talents with numerous students and adults over the years. Lori has an engaging style that puts everyone at ease, and her dedication to the music ministry is contagious. For several years Lori was the choral director at Mill River Union High School in North Clarendon, Vermont where she conducted the school choral program and taught other music courses. She was responsible for teaching many students there and imparting her love of the choral art to them. Additionally Lori has been involved in many events in the church over the years, and is consistently called upon for special events that require her expertise
Women’s Choirs
Dawn Willis
14 Aspen Dr Essex Jct., VT 05452
802.879.1218
willisdawn [@] aol.com
Dawn Willis is the Vermont ACDA Women’s Chorus chair and the Music Director of Bella Voce Women’s Chorus of Vermont. She also serves as the Assistant Director of the Vermont Symphony Orchestra Chorus and as the Choir Director at the First Baptist Church in Burlington. She holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Choral Music from Arizona State University and Masters degrees in Sacred Music and Choral Conducting from Southern Methodist University. Dr. Willis has served as the Director of Choral Activities at McMurry University and Iowa Wesleyan College, as well as the Director of the Arizona State University Women’s Chorus. Her conducting responsibilities have included various academic and church choirs, madrigal ensembles, musical theater, youth choirs, and hand bell ensembles. In addition, she has conducted numerous festivals and workshops throughout Texas, Georgia, Arizona, Iowa, South Dakota, and Vermont and has composed and arranged sacred and secular choral music and works for handbell ensembles. In 1999, Dr. Willis conducted the New England Symphonic Ensemble and the McMurry University Choirs in a performance of Mozart’s Solemn Vespers at Carnegie Hall. She has also served as a guest conductor for the Southeast Iowa Symphony Orchestra, has prepared choruses for regional orchestras in Iowa and Texas, and has served as music director for collegiate and community musicals, operas and madrigal dinners.
Website
Jeff Rehbach
9 Gorham Lane
Middlebury, VT 05753
802.989.7355
rehbach [@] middlebury.edu
Jeff Rehbach conducts the Vermont Choral Union, based in Essex/Burlington, and the 90-voice Middlebury College Community Chorus, a group open to singers without audition. He previously served as director of the Middlebury College Chamber Singers. A resident of Vermont since 1981, he has sung/played with the Vermont Symphony Chorus and Early Music Vermont. Since 1984, he has led the annual “Messiah Sing” each December in Middlebury. He helps lead worship at Memorial Baptist Church in Middlebury, and for 15 years conducted the Middlebury Congregational Church choir. In addition, he has served as music director for various productions of the Middlebury Community Players and the Middlebury College Musical Players. He holds a BA and MA in music history from Cornell University, where he served as assistant conductor of the Sage Chapel Choir and the Cornell Chorus, and led the Collegium Musicum. Jeff retired from Library & Information Services at Middlebury College at the end of June 2010, having served for 29 years in positions ranging from Music Librarian to Policy Advisor to Area Director for Enterprise Systems & Applications.
Jeffrey Buettner
Piero Bonamico
Kristin Cimonetti
Jeff Rehbach
