LEADERSHIP
Gisèle Becker, Music Director of the Cantate Chamber Singers since January 1994, is one of the Washington area's leading choral conductors. Her vision of musical excellence and her commitment to imaginative programming, including commissions and première performances of new choral works, have earned for her the highest admiration and respect from her professional colleagues and audiences alike.
Ms. Becker's newest appointment is as Director of Choral Activities at The George Washington University, where she conducts the George Washington University Singers, an auditioned 40-voice mixed ensemble. She is also an adjunct professor of conducting at Catholic University. For 26 years, Ms. Becker served as singer and assistant conductor of the Washington Bach Consort before resigning in August 2005. She also served as Chorus Master for the Cathedral Choral Society from 1995 to 2004.
Ms. Becker's extensive experience in choral preparation has included the Folger Consort's 1995 production of Dido and Aeneas, and the Cathedral Choral Society's performances of Hindemith's When Lilacs Last at the Dooryard Bloomed for guest conductor Robert Shaw, and of Haydn's The Creation for National Symphony Orchestra conductor Leonard Slatkin. She has prepared the Washington Bach Consort for its performances of Handel's Messiah with Paul McCreesh, the Monteverdi Vespers with Harry Christophers, and Charles Ives' Symphony No. 4, with Leonard Slatkin and the National Symphony Orchestra.
A graduate of Catholic University of America, Ms. Becker has served on the faculties of Trinity College in Washington and the Shenandoah Conservatory of Music in Winchester, VA. In addition to her conducting activities, she is actively engaged as a singer, teacher, adjudicator and clinician.
Andrew Earle Simpson, composer and pianist, is currently Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Theory and Composition at the Benjamin T. Rome School of Music at The Catholic University of America in Washington, DC. He received a DM in Composition from Indiana University in 1995, a MusM from Boston University in 1992, and a BM in Music Theory and Composition from Butler University. His teachers have included Lukas Foss, Claude Baker, Eugene O'Brien, Frederick Fox, and Michael Schelle. He has received awards from the American Music Center, the American Composers Forum, and the Loeb Classical Library Foundation, among others.
As a composer of opera, orchestral works, chamber music, choral and vocal music, dance, theater and film music, Simpson's works have been performed across the United States and abroad by such ensembles as the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, Trinity Chamber Orchestra, Washington Korean Symphony Orchestra, Cedar Rapids Symphony Chamber Players, Contemporary Music Forum, Tampa Bay Composers Forum, Red Cedar Trio, Lyraylos Ensemble (Greece), and by such soloists as Brian Ganz, Michael Cameron and Nancy Ambrose King.
Simpson's first CD of chamber music, Exhortations (Athena Records, 1998), received critical praise from American Record Guide, Strad/Double Bassist (UK), and others. A second CD of chamber music, A Fiery and Still Night, was released on Capstone in late 2005.
Dr. Simpson is co-director (with librettist Sarah B. Ferrario) of The Oresteia Project, a multi-year enterprise to set each of the three ancient Greek tragedies of Aeschylus' Oresteia as one-act operas. The first opera, Agamemnon, premiered in April 2003, created "a shattering impact" (The Washington Post). The Libation Bearers, the second opera, received a concert workshop premiere in March 2004 to another favorable Washington Post review. His third opera, The Furies, will receive a fully-staged production in February 2006.
In spring 2005, in conjunction with fellow composer-performer Maurice Saylor, Simpson founded the Snark Ensemble, an instrumental group devoted to presenting live performances of the composers' new scores for vintage silent films. Most recently, Dr. Simpson was named Composer-in-Residence for the Cantate Chamber Singers (Washington, DC) and the Red Cedar Trio (Cedar Rapids, IA).
Dr. Simpson has also conceived and implemented a new Master's degree program focusing on composition of music for the stage (opera, musical theatre, dance, and drama) which opens at the Benjamin T. Rome School of Music in fall 2005. This innovative program - the MM Composition, Stage Music Emphasis - was designed by Dr. Simpson in response to a perceived need for instruction and practical training in an area of compositional activity frequently under-emphasized by traditional university composition curricula. Dr. Simpson also founded the Visiting Composers Series at the Benjamin T. Rome School of Music in 2003.
Cantate's Board of Directors
Dennis Tosh, Chair
Donna Smith, Vice Chair
Janet L. Ishimoto, Secretary
Judith Guenther, Treasurer
Ulf Ekernas
Carrie Eyler
Ed Kelly
Sarah Kerr
David Klaus
Mary Mahle
James L. McHugh
Robin A. Pennington
Judith L. Robb
Artistic staff members and key administrators
Gisèle Becker, Music Director
Judith F. Davis, Coordinator, Young Composers' Contest
Wayne Guenther, Business Manager
Andrew E. Simpson, Keyboard Artist
