Wednesdays

7:00 pm - 8:30 pm

Online

1/19, 1/26, 2/2 & 2/9

Four Sessions 

EVENING COURSE!

This course is offered online via the easy-to-use Zoom program.

Jack Brown, Artistic Director of Berkshire Lyric, will lead the participants in an exploration of the joys and challenges of being a choral director. With the help of guest conductors, the class will explore the behind-the-scenes of running a successful chorus, enabling amateur musicians to engage with the special meaning and beauty that great music can provide. Topics will include choosing repertoire to fit the group, conducting and rehearsal styles, and balancing musical discipline with fun (or how to be demanding but kind.)

At a time when we feel increasingly stressed and disconnected, singing encourages mindfulness and meaningful social relationships. On any given day, people are singing together in small towns and big cities, in orchestra halls and churches, and at formal performances and casual community singing. Get an inside look from a unique perspective (the podium) on this enormous part of our musical culture.

Jack Brown is well known in the Berkshires as a choral conductor and concert singer. He has been Artistic Director of Berkshire Lyric since 2007,the oldest and largest choral organization in the region with over 150 singers ages 6 to 80 in four distinct choruses. His recent journey with the Berkshire Lyric Chorus through the classical masters of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert at Tanglewood's Seiji Ozawa Hall were broadcast on WMHT-FM. He is also the director of the vocal program at The Hotchkiss School and, in the summer months, conducts the B'Shalom Chorale of the Berkshires. Here in the Berkshires he has enjoyed long relationships directing choruses at Bard College at Simon's Rock, MCLA and the Buxton School.

Well known to area audiences as a bass soloist in oratorios of Bach, Handel, Mozart, Mendelssohn and Brahms, Jack has sung professionally throughout the U.S. and Canada. He has been a frequent recitalist and has given premiere performances by a number of contemporary American composers. Jack is also on the staff of the nationally known Austin Riggs Center in Stockbridge, where he explores the healing power of music with the patient community.  A native of Philadelphia and a long time New Yorker, he has lived in Stockbridge for thirty years, raising two daughters with his wife Cindy.

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