Chorus pro Musica Announces Appointment of
Dr. Betsy Burleigh as Music Director
For Immediate Release:
May 4, 2009
Chorus pro Musica is proud to announce the appointment of Dr. Betsy Burleigh to be the chorus's fifth Music Director in its sixty year history. Dr. Burleigh will assume her duties at the close of the current season in June. She succeeds Jeffrey Rink, who led the chorus with distinction for 17 years until his departure last fall to accept the Mattie Kelly Distinguished Endowed Teaching Chair in Music and Conducting at Northwest Florida State College and to lead the Northwest Florida Symphony Orchestra as the symphony's full-time conductor and music director.
Burleigh is Music Director of the Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh, a renowned 115-voice chorus founded in 1908 that is the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra's chorus of choice, assuming that position from Robert Page in 2006. She is also completing her eleventh season as Assistant Director of Choruses for the Cleveland Orchestra, and is currently
Professor and Coordinator of Choral and Vocal Studies at Cleveland State University.
Burleigh was chorus master for the Cleveland Opera from 2002-2006 and director of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Chorus from 1998-2006 She has also served as director of both the Canton Symphony Chorus and Akron Symphony Chorus. A frequent guest conductor, she led Opera Cleveland's critically acclaimed 2007 performances of A Little Night Music. In 2000, she received the Northern Ohio Live Achievement Award for the musical direction of Viktor Ullman's opera Der Kaiser von Atlantis.
Burleigh's career began in Boston, where she was Music Director of The Master Singers from 1985-1991, conducting the chorus in their subscription concert series and preparing them for collaborations with groups including the Boston Pops and Monadnock Music. She also served as Music Director for the Longy Chamber Singers and the Cambridge Madrigal Singers, and was a guest conductor for the Dartmouth Handel Society and the Dedham Choral Society
Burleigh has been Director of Choral Activities at Tufts University and at Clark University, and has taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Longy School of Music, Southeastern Massachusetts University, and in both public and private high schools. She holds a doctorate in choral conducting from Indiana University and a masters degree from the New England Conservatory of Music.
Chorus pro Musica is a distinguished, independent Boston-based chorus recognized
for versatility and excellence in performing traditional, adventurous and seldom-heard
works. The chorus was founded in 1949 by the late Alfred Nash Patterson and
quickly built a superb reputation for its professional-level musical standards
and innovative programming. Founding Music Director Alfred Nash Patterson led
the chorus until his death in 1979; he was succeeded by Donald Palumbo, who
left in 1988 to become Chorus Master of the Chicago Lyric Opera (he currently
holds that position for the Metropolitan Opera). The third Music Director,
Donald Kendrick, served only one year before returning to California, where
he founded the Sacramento Choral Society and Orchestra (which he still leads)
and the Sacramento Children's Chorus. Jeffrey Rink became Chorus pro Musica's
fourth Music Director in the fall of 1990.
Media Contact:
Sue Auclair, Sue Auclair Promotions
617-522-1394
sue@sueauclair.com
Chorus pro Musica is proud to announce the appointment of Dr. Betsy Burleigh to be the chorus's fifth Music Director in its sixty year history. Dr. Burleigh will assume her duties at the close of the current season in June. She succeeds Jeffrey Rink, who led the chorus with distinction for 17 years until his departure last fall to accept the Mattie Kelly Distinguished Endowed Teaching Chair in Music and Conducting at Northwest Florida State College and to lead the Northwest Florida Symphony Orchestra as the symphony's full-time conductor and music director.