CBA SYMPHONY & CHORUS OFFICIAL PROGRAM rebecca Patterson, Choral Director <strong>The</strong> <strong>Chicago</strong> <strong>Bar</strong> association Chorus Choral direc tor Rebecca Patterson brings more than thirty years of p rofessional experience to her work with the <strong>Chicago</strong> <strong>Bar</strong> <strong>Association</strong> Chorus. As a soprano soloist, she has appeared with the <strong>Chicago</strong> Symphony Orchestra, Music of the <strong>Bar</strong>oque, and regional orchestras. In operatic performances she has portrayed such diverse characters as Lauretta in Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi, Musetta in La Bohème, and Amahl in Menotti’s Amahl and the Night Visitors. As a choral musician, Rebecca has experience as both singer and conductor. As a chorister she sang with <strong>The</strong> <strong>Chicago</strong> Symphony Chorus under Margaret Hillis and the Grant Park Festival Chorus. In 2006 Rebecca led the CBA Chorus in rehearsals for its performance of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 at Navy Pier. Since then, she has prepared the chorus for performances of Fauré’s Requiem, Vivaldi’s Gloria, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Haydn’s Creation and Poulenc’s Gloria. Shortly after the Chorus’s formation, Rebecca led the group in the National Anthem at a <strong>Chicago</strong> White Sox game. Before conducting at baseball games, Rebecca served as music director for a number of churches in the <strong>Chicago</strong> area. In addition to conducting, Rebecca maintains a private voice studio, where she works with classical and musical theatre singers. 16 | CBA SYMPHONY & CHORUS David Katz, Founding music Director and Conductor <strong>The</strong> <strong>Chicago</strong> <strong>Bar</strong> association Symphony Orchestra David Katz is one of the most versatile of performing artists: conductor, composer, playwright, and actor. He is the founding music director of the <strong>Chicago</strong> <strong>Bar</strong> <strong>Association</strong> Symphony Orchestra, now celebrating his 25th season. During his long tenure <strong>Chicago</strong>land’s unique all-lawyer ensemble has performed more than one hundred times, in repertoire ranging from Gilbert and Sullivan’s Trial By Jury to Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 and Carmina Burana. David Katz has led more than sixty orchestras and opera companies throughout the U.S., Canada and Mexico as guest conductor, including concerts with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Mississippi Symphony and Corpus Christi Symphony. Former associate conductor of the Elgin Symphony Orchestra under Margaret Hillis, and for twelve years music director of the Adrian Symphony Orchestra and co-founder of Opera!Lenawee in Michigan, Katz is currently artistic director of Hat City Music <strong>The</strong>ater and the Candlewood Symphony in Connecticut. In addition to David Katz’s busy career as conductor and composer (<strong>Chicago</strong> Symphony principal horn Dale Clevenger premiered his A Baccahanal for horn and orchestra with the Elgin Symphony) David is also a professional playwright and actor. He has toured his acclaimed one-man play, MUSE of FIRE, about the secrets of the conductor’s art, from <strong>Chicago</strong> to Halifax, Baltimore to Boston, and returns to the Midwest with it in 2012. Called “a MUST SEE” by WFMT, a “one-man epic,” and hailed by the <strong>Chicago</strong> Sun-Times for its “unique depth and humor, tremendous verve and palpable passion,” MUSE of FIRE was the last play directed by Tony-Award winner, Charles Nelson Reilly. www.museoffireplay.squarespace.com. David Katz is also the Chief Judge and U.S. spokesperson for <strong>The</strong> American Prize national competitions in the performing arts, a unique series of nonprofit contests that provide feedback, reward, and recognition to classically trained conductors, composers, vocalists, pianists, actors and performing arts ensembles nationwide. First held in 2010, the competitions have already provided hundreds of professional evaluations to artists and awarded thousands of dollars in prizes. www.theamericanprize.org. David Katz holds baccalaureate and master’s degrees in composition and conducting from the Hartt School of Music of the University of Hartford. He was a student of the great Lithuanian maestro, Vytautas Marijosius, and was the first in the school’s history to be awarded an Artist’s Diploma in Conducting. Katz also studied for five years under Maestro Charles Bruck at the Pierre Monteux School for Conductors in Maine, and later founded Opera Maine, the Monteux Opera Festival, and the Chamber Orchestra of Maine. He has partnered such artists as Itzhak Perlman and Misha Dichter in concert and has worked with some of the greatest composers of the age, including William Schuman, Hans Werner Henze, Milton Babbitt and Elliott Carter. Katz’s own compositions are published by Carl Fischer and G. Schirmer, among others.
Seyfarth Shaw is proud to support the <strong>Chicago</strong> <strong>Bar</strong> <strong>Association</strong> Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. www.seyfarth.com
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