Julie Rulyak Steinberg, Chair

Julie Rulyak Steinberg is proud to serve as the Acting Executive Director at Turtle Bay Music School. Previously she served as the School's Development and Marketing Manager after joining the TBMS family in 2005. Prior to working with TBMS, Ms. Steinberg acted as Managing Director of Cynthia Glacken Associates, a leader in not-for-profit communications strategy and design. Ms. Steinberg brings a wealth of experience in brand identity and continuity, strategic planning, and best practices for fundraising and development. She has also had the opportunity to present and discuss relevant topics in fundraising and organizational strategy at national, state, and local conferences and panels.

Deeply committed to the growth of community music, Ms. Steinberg has also worked with Third Street Music School Settlement and the National Guild for Community Arts Education (formerly the National Guild of Community Schools of the Arts) while developing curriculum for a Community Music Education Master's Degree Program at New York University. Ms. Steinberg holds a B.M., summa cum laude, and M.A. from New York University's Steinhardt School for Culture, Education and Human Development.

Marion S. Wise, Vice Chair

While a student at UCLA, Marion Wise was fortunate to have the opportunity to perform under the direction of both Dr. Kano and Donald Neuen. After graduation, she moved to New York City as a member of Teach For America, a program which brings recent college graduates into low-income classrooms in an effort to close the education achievement gap. Ms. Wise taught middle school English for two years and earned a Masters in Teaching. She received a Masters of Social Work degree from New York University and currently works for Children’s Aid Society in the mental health clinic of a middle school in the Bronx.

Ms. Wise has been singing with the New York City Master Chorale since its inauguration. She also serves as Personnel Manager and Administrative Assistant for the organization.

Jessica McVea, Treasurer

Jessica McVea is a graduate of New York University's Tisch School of the Arts and is a director and actor in the New York Independent Theater Community. She is the Director of Theatre and a founding member of Thesia Arts, and she recently forayed into the film directing business with the short horror film The Procedure. Ms. McVea has been with the Chorale for five years and has sung with the Chorale at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall, at which she was recently a soloist. She is currently studying to become a high school biology teacher, in the hopes that she will finally be able to combine her love of art with her love of science.

Skip Teel, Secretary

Skip Teel first felt the thrill of performing when he was eight years old, as a member of the chorus in a children's production of Big River. Since then, he has had the pleasure of performing in a wide variety of musicals as diverse as L'il Abner, West Side Story, A Chorus Line, and Kiss of the Spiderwoman. In high school, Mr. Teel fell in love with choral music as a member of chamber and madrigal choral ensembles, and was able to perform in gorgeous venues from Mexico to Italy. Mr. Teel earned a B.A. in music from New York University, and is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from Teachers College at Columbia.

A baritone in the NYCMC since 2007, Mr. Teel is proud and honored to be a part of such a talented and dedicated group of musicians.

Laurence C. Boylan, Esq.

Mr. Boylan started studying music at the age of 7. He began with piano, moved on to the flute, and then focused on singing. Starting out, he sang in his church choir and his high school choir. In college, he sang in both the glee club and the gospel choir. For the past five years, he has sung with the Gay Men's Chorus of Washington, DC. Within GMCW, he sings in their chamber choir, the Rock Creek Singers, and serves on their marketing committee. Currently, he is the manager of a Pro Se Family Law Clinic in the Baltimore City Circuit Court, through the Maryland Legal Aid Bureau. He also contracts with the firm Freshfields, Bruckhaus, Deringer LLP, in their Antitrust Department. He was a double major in Art History and English at the University of Rochester, where he received his B.A. He earned his J.D. at the Northeastern University School of Law, and is currently a member of the Bar of the State of Maryland. Mr. Boylan is the past Chair of the New York City Master Chorale Board of Trustees.

Ken Cole

Ken Cole, associate director of the National Guild for Community Arts Education, the national service association for nonprofit arts education organizations, oversees the Guild’s program, communications and marketing departments and raises funds from such leading funders such the National Endowment for the Arts, American Express and MetLife Foundation. Since joining the staff in 2004, Mr. Cole has developed and produced numerous national conferences and training events including the annual Conference for Community Arts Education and the new Community Arts Education Leadership Institute; publications, including Partners in Excellence: A Guide to Community School of the Arts/Public School Partnerships, Creativity Matters: The Arts and Aging Toolkit, and Engaging Adolescents: Building Youth Participation in the Arts; research studies; grant making programs; and the Guild’s Community Arts Education Resource Center.

From 2001–2004, Mr. Cole served as Director of Advancement at the Levine School of Music in Washington, DC, where he raised more than $1.6 million per year and helped triple the number of economically disadvantaged children receiving free music instruction. Mr. Cole was Executive Director of GALA Choruses, the international service association of the lesbian and gay choral movement from 1994–2001. While at GALA, he produced some of the world’s largest choral festivals featuring more than 140 choruses and 5,200 singers from 11 countries. He served as Development Director for the Fairfax Symphony Orchestra from 1991–1994, and as a professional orchestral violist for more than a decade.

Mr. Cole has been a grant review panelist for the League of American Orchestras, DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, the New Jersey State Arts Council, The Washington Post Company, and Young Audiences. He presents regularly at conferences of such organizations as Chorus America, Educational Theater Association, Arts Education Partnership, Association of Fundraising Professionals, League of American Orchestras, Grantmakers in the Arts, and the American Society on Aging; he also helped program the education track for the 2008 National Performing Arts Convention. He helped edit Chorus America’s Leading the Successful Chorus: A Guide for Managers, Board Members, and Music Directors. Mr. Cole also serves as a panelist for the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities’ Coming Up Taller Awards. He holds a BM and an MM in viola performance from Oberlin College Conservatory and Louisiana State University (where he held a graduate teaching fellowship), respectively.

Gailyn Gwin

Gailyn Gwin, a graduate of the University of Maryland, has been involved in music, arts management, and arts broadcasting for many years. She is in her 40th year as Music Director at Oaklands Presbyterian Church in Laurel, Maryland, a singer with The Washington Chorus for 34 years, conductor and singer with The Outreach Chorus of The Washington Chorus, and conductor of The Collington Singers at a life care retirement community. She is the Arts Reporter for CTV Channel 76 with weekly news reports and also a monthly program "Arts About the County." Ms Gwin has been Executive Director of the Prince George's County Media and Film Office and Manager and President of the Board of the Prince George's Philharmonic, involved with the management of individual artists, and Special Events Coordinator for the National Symphony Orchestra.

Esther Oskorie Lee

For over 10 years, Esther Lee has been an educator in public and independent schools in New York City. She currently is the Director of Performing Arts and the Associate Director of Admission at St. Hilda’s & St. Hugh’s, a co-educational independent school. An advocate for the arts in schools, Ms. Lee has worked closely with the Metropolitan Opera Guild and the Manhattan School of Music in order to bring opera to students of all ages. In 2000, Ms. Lee co-opened a specialized public middle school in East Harlem for high performing students. Through her efforts, Ms. Lee’s students were the first in Harlem to travel to France at no cost; performed with Opus 118 (the string program featured in the film Music of the Heart); appeared in the city’s local evening news for being the first school in East Harlem to participate in charitable literacy through Charity Checks; and participated in arts workshops designed for students and parents.

A lyric soprano, Ms. Lee formerly began her music training at the age of 4. At age 15, she independently researched and hired her first voice teacher. Three months later, she was the youngest conductor of the Los Angeles Hanmi Children’s Opera Chorus in Los Angeles and winner of the prestigious Spotlight Awards in classical voice. Ms. Lee earned her Bachelor of Music and Master of Music from the Manhattan School of Music (NY) and is a graduate of the Crossroads School for the Arts and Sciences (CA). She has performed in New York, Los Angeles, Italy, Korea, Singapore, Brazil and Germany. Master classes with various artists include Sherrill Milnes, Betty Allen, Sumi Jo, Erie Mills, Mikael Eliasen and Henry Mancini. Previous teachers include Jae Woo Lee, Natalie Bodanya, Hilda Harris and Joan Patenaude-Yarnell. She currently studies with Scott Rednour and Dr. Thea Kano. A native of São Paulo, Brazil, Ms. Lee speaks Portuguese, Korean, Spanish and French fluently.

Debbie Farson, Advisory

Debbie Farson is the owner of Home Solutions Connection, Inc., a referral business that connects homeowners in Northern Virginia and Montgomery County, Maryland to licensed, highly-skilled home improvement contractors.

Ms. Farson obtained her B.A. in English from Arizona State University in 1986, a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center in 1989, and is a member of the Virginia and D.C. bars. She practiced law with the Virginia office of D.C.-based Jordan Coyne and Savits LLP before having children. She stayed home full time with her children until she started Home Solutions Connection in 2001.

Ms. Farson studied piano beginning at the age of 6, also studied voice in high school, and participated in choruses as a singer and accompanist through college. Ms. Farson also directs the children's choirs at her church.

Stephanie Germeraad, Advisory

Stephanie Germeraad is a public affairs executive who brings over 10 years of nonprofit leadership experience to NYCMC. She has served as both a board member and board staff for a variety of entertainment, philanthropic and issue advocacy projects, including the Milken Archive of American Jewish Music. Ms. Germeraad is a past Chair of the New York City Master Chorale Board of Trustees. Her work with nonprofits has garnered the Crystal Award of Excellence from the National Communicator Awards, the PRism Award of Excellence from the Public Relations Society of America, and the PRo Award from the Public Communicators of Los Angeles.

Ms. Germeraad is a graduate of the Greater Los Angeles Board Fellows Program, and completed a board internship with the Los Angeles County Arts Commission. Over the past decade, she has been active in a variety of arts, community and civic organizations in New York, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and Dallas. Ms. Germeraad earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication.

Sean Robinson, Advisory

Dr. Sean Robinson is an Associate Professor in the School of Education at Argosy University in Washington, DC. His primary teaching areas include leadership development, organizational theory and behavior, research methods, and higher education administration. Dr. Robinson has over 15 years experience on university and college campuses, in a multitude of roles in both the Student Affairs and Academic Affairs arenas.

In addition to his teaching, Dr. Robinson maintains two private ventures. The first is a private coaching and consulting practice, which focuses on organizational development, strategic planning, human resource initiatives, and developing leaders as coaches. His clients are primarily entrepreneurs, non-profit organizations, and colleges/universities. His second business is a health & wellness company located in DC.

When he is not teaching or seeing clients, Dr. Robinson can be found rehearsing or performing with both the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington (GMCW), and Rock Creek Singers, an auditioned small ensemble within GMCW. Dr. Robinson has been involved in music, dance, and theatre since the age of 11. At age 14, he was awarded a full scholarship to study dance with the Virginia Ballet Company. While in graduate school, Dr. Robinson began studying both Modern and Ballroom Dance and within three years was on the national competition circuit, often placing in the top three in ballroom, Latin, and theatre arts/interpretive dance categories. He has performed with several large choruses over the past 20 years and his musical travels have allowed him to perform at numerous venues in the US including the Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, and the Boston Symphony Hall, and in several venues in Canada and Europe.

Nancy Strohmeyer, Advisory

Nancy Strohmeyer began studying piano at the age of 5, and added flute studies at the age of 10. In high school, Ms. Strohmeyer began voice instruction, and attended Ithaca College’s School of Music where she majored in voice. Ms. Strohmeyer is an alumna of Seagle Music Colony, the summer young artist program, and now serves on its Board of Directors. Ms. Strohmeyer has sung in choruses throughout the metropolitan New York City area and has performed as a concert and recital soloist. Currently, Ms. Strohmeyer is the mezzo-soprano soloist at Church of the Master in Harlem and St. Margaret of Cortona Roman Catholic Church in the Bronx. She studies voice with Dr. Lynda Elliott in New York City.

Ms. Strohmeyer received a Bachelor of Arts degree from New York University, and she earned her J.D. from Brooklyn Law School. In her career as an attorney, Ms. Strohmeyer has worked as an Assistant District Attorney in the New York County District Attorney’s office, and is currently employed as a prosecutor in the New York State Department of Health. She lives with her husband, Warren Harr, and their two daughters in the Bronx.

Ms. Strohmeyer is proud to be a founding singer with the New York City Master Chorale. She is grateful for the opportunity to work with Dr. Thea Kano and the fabulous musicians in the Chorale.

Morten Lauridsen, Honorary

Music by Morten Lauridsen occupies a permanent place in the standard vocal repertoire of the Twentieth-Century. His seven major vocal cycles--Les Chansons des Roses (Rilke), Mid-Winter Songs (Graves), Cuatro Canciones (Lorca), A Winter Come (Moss), Madrigali: Six “Firesongs” on Renaissance Italian Poems, Nocturnes (Rilke, Neruda and Agee) and Lux Aeterna--and his series of sacred a cappella motets (O Magnum Mysterium, Ave Maria, O Nata Lux and Ubi Caritas et Amor) are featured regularly in concert by distinguished ensembles throughout the world. O Magnum Mysterium, O Nata Lux (from Lux Aeterna) and Dirait-on (from Les Chansons des Roses) have become the all-time best selling choral octavos distributed by Theodore Presser, in business since 1783.

The recent book, Choral Music in the Twentieth Century by Nick Strimple, describes Lauridsen as “the only American composer in history who can be called a mystic (whose) probing, serene work contains an elusive and indefinable ingredient which leaves the impression that all the questions have been answered...From 1993 Lauridsen’s music rapidly increased in international popularity, and by century’s end he had eclipsed Randall Thompson as the most frequently performed American choral composer.”

His works have been recorded on over a hundred CDs, three of which have received Grammy nominations, including O Magnum Mysterium by the New York-based ensemble, Tiffany Consort, led by Nicholas White, and two all-Lauridsen discs entitled Lux Aeterna by the Los Angeles Master Chorale conducted by Paul Salamunovich (RCM) and Polyphony with the Brtitten Sinfonia conducted by Stephen Layton (Hyperion). His most recent commissions have been from Harvard University, the San Francisco Bay Brass and the Raymond Brock Memorial Commission for the American Choral Directors Association’s 2005 national convention in Los Angeles. A sixth all-Lauridsen CD, Nocturnes and Rose Songs, will be released in 2006 on the Hyperion label. His principal publishers are Peermusic (New York/Hamburg) and Peer’s affiliate, Faber Music (London).

Mr. Lauridsen (b. 1943) served as Composer-in-Residence of the Los Angeles Master Chorale from 1995-2001 and has been Professor of Composition at the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music for the past thirty-five years. A native of the Pacific Northwest, he worked as a Forest Service fire-fighter and lookout (on an isolated tower near Mt. St. Helens) before traveling south to study composition with Halsey Stevens and Ingolf Dahl. Mr. Lauridsen now divides his time between Los Angeles and his summer cabin on a remote island off the northern coast of Washington State. Further information regarding Mr. Lauridsen may be found at mortenlauridsen.com.

Donald Neuen, Honorary

Donald Neuen, conductor and artistic director, has defined the artistic vision and performance standards of the Angeles Chorale since 1995. We're proud to have the leadership and dedication to excellence of this internationally-acclaimed director, who has been referred to as “...the great choral conductor of his generation” by musicologist Julius Herford.

In additon, as Distinguished Professor and Director of Choral Activities at UCLA, Don Neuen heads one of the most respected graduate choral conducting programs in the U.S. Prior to UCLA, he served for twelve years in the same position at the Eastman School of Music.

Hailed by Don Hinshaw as “the driving force of choral music education in America,” Neuen also conducts the Crystal Cathedral Choir at the landmark Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, CA, and appears weekly on their internationally-televised "Hour of Power" broadcast.

A student and protégé of Robert Shaw, Neuen went to Atlanta in 1970 at Shaw’s request to create the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chorus, and to serve as Assistant Conductor and Director of Choral Activities for the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. Maestro Neuen has made it his personal mission to build on the standards of excellence set by Shaw.

Neuen has served on the faculties of the universities of Wisconsin, Tennessee, Ball State, and Georgia State University. In addition, he has conducted orchestras from around the world, and has led conducting clinics in Europe, Asia, Mexico, Canada, and nearly every state in the United States.

Paul Salamunovich, Honorary

Paul Salamunovich has been called an American Choral Treasure. His career of some sixty-six years has been marked by the highest achievements in professional, educational and liturgical music. At seventy-seven he is as busy as ever having conducted in the past year the Angeles Chorale, the Ventura Master Chorale, numerous clinics and workshops around the country and at Carnegie Hall. In November of 2003 he led the St. Petersburg Philharmonic of Russia along with the Master Chorale of the United States in the Mozart Requiem at the Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome in the concluding concert of the International Festival of Sacred Music and Art.

He began his choral life as a boy soprano at the age of ten and continued, from the age of fourteen, under the baton of Roger Wagner. In 1949 he became Director of Music at St. Charles Borromeo in North Hollywood and is there to this day. Under his direction the St. Charles Choir has risen to preeminence among American church choirs. In 1988 they became the only American choir ever invited to sing at the Mass for the Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul with Pope John Paul II presiding in St. Peter's Square in Rome. They also performed for the Pope in a private audience in Clementine Hall of the Vatican Palace in 1985 and in 1987 at St. Vibiana's Cathedral for the official welcome of the Pontiff to the City of Los Angeles. For his contributions to sacred music, Pope Paul VI honored Salamunovich with a Papal Knighthood in the Order of St. Gregory. Under Paul's direction the choir appeared with Henry Mancini and Doc Severinson in the NBC Christmas Eve Special and also recorded for numerous motion picture and television soundtracks including True Confessions, Flatliners, Cirque de Soleil's Journey of Man and ER.

As an educator, Salamunovich was a member of the music faculty at Mount St. Mary's College for eighteen years and for twenty-seven years at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles where he was awarded Professor Emeritus status in 1993. He also holds two honorary doctorates from Loyola Marymount University and the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota. He has conducted clinics and festivals throughout the United States, Canada, the Bahamas, South America, Europe, Australia and the Far East. He also conducted at an unprecedented four consecutive American Choral Directors Association (ACDA) Biennial National Conventions: with the LMU Men's Chorus in 1987, their Women's Chorus in 1989, the St. Charles Borromeo Choir in 1991 and the LA Master Chorale in 1993. In 2000 the Western Division recognized Paul with its Lifetime Achievement Award. In February of 2003 Paul again brought the St. Charles Choir to the National Convention in New York where they gave back to back performances of Morten Lauridsen's Lux Aeterna to a combined audience of more than 5,000 choral directors in St. Patrick's Cathedral.

Salamunovich has been responsible for choral music in more than a hundred feature films and television productions for such studios as Columbia, Paramount, 20th Century Fox, Warner Bros. and Disney including First Knight, Air Force One, Steven Spielberg's A.I., Sum of All Fears, Sony's XXX and Universal's Peter Pan.

In April of 2001 Paul Salamunovich was named Music Director Emeritus of the Los Angeles Master Chorale, capping his ten-year term as its Director and marking the culmination of a lifetime association with both the Chorale and its founder, Roger Wagner. Salamunovich was a charter member of the organization and was, for twenty-four years, Assistant Conductor of both the Roger Wagner and LA Master Chorales. During his tenure as Music Director the LA Master Chorale recorded three CDs: Christmas, Lauridsen-Lux Aeterna and Argento-Duruflé. The Lux Aeterna, composed for and dedicated to Paul remains a top-seller. It received a Grammy nomination for Best Choral Performance and has greatly impacted the field of choral music in the United States and overseas. January 23rd, 2005 marks his first guest appearance with the Chorale as Music Director Emeritus at the Disney Concert Hall. Having been booked well into the next year he shows no sign of slowing down.

Thea Kano, ex officio

James Stephen Longo, Chorus President, ex officio

Past Members

Marnie Andrews
Rob Driggers
Robert Johnson
Sandy Lee
Anna Lewis
Leslie Ann Lopez
Tere Preciado
Greg Takayama
Debra K. Unger
Ken Williamson