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• The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has an article about the retirement of Amy Kaiser as director of the St. Louis Symphony Chorus after 27 seasons. Prior to her St. Louis appointment, Amy was an active part of choral life in New York, where she was music director of the Dessoff Choirs and the Mannes Chamber Singers, a teacher at the Manhattan School of Music, guest conductor for the Metropolitan Opera and principal conductor of the 92nd Street Y’s school concert series. She also prepared choruses for the New York Philharmonic and the Mostly Mozart Festival. (2022-5-11)
• Encore Creativity for Older Adults, the nation’s largest choral organization for adults over 55, will celebrate its 15th anniversary with a special concert honoring founder Jeanne Kelly at the renowned Music Center at Strathmore in North Bethesda, MD, on Saturday, May 14 at 3 PM. Ten singers from the New York City Encore Chorale will be participating. For more information, visit www.strathmore.org/what-s-on/in-the-music-center/encore-creativity-15th-anniversary-celebration/. (2022-4-30)
• The Greenwich Village Chamber Singers have appointed Michael Sheetz as music director, beginning July 2022. (2022-4-28)
• Trinity Church has fired its music director, Julian Wachner, after accusations of misconduct. Read the Times story for more details. (2022-3-17)
• Babylon: Ghetto, Renaissance and Modern Oblivion, an early-music film written and directed by Salon/Sanctuary Concerts founder and artistic director Jessica Gould, took home the prize for best picture at the Asti International Film Festival. For more about the movie, visit www.babylonfilm.net/. (2021-12-31)

Archive of old "News" items

Subscribe to VANupdate. Receive twice-monthly updates about new content on Vocal Area Network. Get the latest news items, upcoming vocal ensemble events, the most recent postings to the VAN Concert Calendar, new site features and updates to Choir Auditions, the Choir Directory and the Info Exchange. Sign up here.

• June 1, 2022: We've cleaned up some listings in the Choir Directory. Thanks to Merve Ciplak for identifying a handful of ensembles that are no longer active.
• May 19, 2022: New Choir Directory listing for The Brasiles Ensemble, an a cappella quintet based in Garrison, NY.
• May 4, 2022: New Choir Directory listing for the St. Peter's Evangelical Lutheran Church Choir in Baldwin, NY.
• January 26, 2022: New link for Singing and You, Gretchen Greenfield's site devoted to learning how to sing better.
• January 13, 2022: New Choir Directory listing and Choir Auditions ad for the Catskill Choral Society, based in Oneonta, NY.
• November 18, 2021: Ensembles come, ensembles, go. And when they go, they usually don't let us at Vocal Area Network know of their demise. If you come across listings for groups that seem no longer to be extant, please drop me a note at steve.friedman@van.org and let me know. Thanks to Merve Ciplak for identifying five or six groups in the no-longer-active category.
• September 13, 2021: We've made another tweak to how we differentiate between current and past Sustaining Members. Current Sustaining Members will be those who have contributed within the past twelve months. Past Sustaining Members will be those whose most recent contribution occurrred more than a year ago. Hope that makes things clearer.
• August 26, 2021: The BVS Women's Choir is now the Brooklyn Treble Choir.
• August 5, 2021: New link for NYC Choral Freelancers, a Facebook group dedicated to all those who toil in the fine professional choral ensembles of NYC.
• July 12, 2021: We've done our periodic (but perhaps not frequent enough) cleanup of links and sites in our Links Collection. Please let us know if you find links that are dead or in need of updating.

Archive of old "New on VAN" items

• Need some exquisite beaded jewelry to complement your concert attire or enhance your look on your next Zoom call? Or perhaps a distinctive gift for that special singer in your life? Or maybe you'd like to host a jewelry show to benefit your favorite non-profit organization? Try Carnelian Knoll, where you'll find necklaces, bracelets and earrings of vintage beads and silver handcrafted by Julie Siegmund.
• Looking for rehearsal space or performance venues? Try NYC Music Spaces, part of Fractured Atlas's SpaceFinder NYC database of available rehearsal and performance spaces for instrumental and vocal musicians. You'll find places to rent, from studios to large venues, for classical, jazz, rock--whatever you need to rehearse or perform in NYC.
• Looking for an outstanding vocal ensemble coach? Mark Johnson, possessor of an amazing ear and terrific interpretive insights in a variety of styles, is available to coach your group. Contact Mark via e-mail.
• Liz Fleischer's Sight-Singing Program is offered each season at the Kaufman Center (129 West 67th Street). Classes include ear-training, rhythm and pitch reading, music theory, basic notation and terminology, with emphasis on learning to hold a part with confidence. For more info, visit www.kaufman-center.org/lucyadults_mus_sight.htm, e-mail fleischerliz@aol.com or adultdivision@kaufman-center.org or call (212) 501-3362. The sight-singing program is just one of the classes offered by the Kaufman Center's Lucy Moses School.

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