Our 14th Season - 2009-2010

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Gian Carlo Menotti, 1944
The Chesapeake Choral Arts Society's 2009-2010 concert season was a celebration of musical compositions from the mid to late 20th century. The season featured Menotti’s Amahl and the Night Visitors, a March Pops Concert of Music of the Movies and Television, and concluded with a June concert featuring both Rutter's Requiem and Randall Thompson’s Frostiana: Seven Country Songs.

Rehearsals began on September 14, 2009, and continued on Monday nights from 7-9 pm at the La Plata United Methodist Church. The End-of-Season membership meeting took place on Monday, June 14, 2010, in the same location.
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The holiday concert of our 15th season was held on Saturday and Sunday, the 9th and 10th of January at the College of Southern Maryland's Fine Arts Center Theater in La Plata, Maryland.

After being postponed due to the Blizzard of 2009, the Chesapeake Choral Arts Society presented A Selection of Christmas Carols, complete with the debut of an original work, Embers, by CCAS member W.G. Pete Stokes.

The concert was followed by a fully staged production of Gian Carlo Menotti's Amahl and the Night Visitors. The roles of Amahl and Mother were played by Tony Teleky and Angela Powell (pictured), respectively. The three kings were played by Larry Robinson, Michael Mickey, and John Scheer. David Monk conducted the six piece orchestra that accompanied.
On March 20, we held our formal version of the Music of the Movies and Television concert at the La Plata United Methodist Church in La Plata, Maryland. The concert was very well attended and was followed by a reception in the church's Fellowship Hall.

Solos were performed by: Peter Ullmann, Therese Thiedeman, Patricia McConkey, Rachel Pickeral, Larry Robinson, Justin McCright, Lynn Monje, Pat Stokes, Pete Stokes, Robert Johnson, Keta Johnson, Carol Scheer, John Scheer, Steve Schwab, Katie Gochnour, Carol Charnock, and guest soloist Jennifer Cooper.

On March 21, we performed the same concert in a family-style atmosphere in the social hall of Our Lady Help of Christians Church in Waldorf, Maryland. The CCAS was assisted by the OLHC Youth Group who ably set up and later dismantled seating for our nice-size, multi-age audience, and handled refreshment sales at intermission as well.

The CCAS wishes to extend thanks to both church families that welcomed us into their homes and all those who attended our concerts.
We presented our annual Spring Concert featuring Frostiana: Seven Country Songs, composed by Randall Thompson with words by Robert Frost, and Requiem by John Rutter on Sunday, the 13th of June, in the La Plata United Methodist Church, La Plata, Maryland.

John Rutter's Requiem was accompanied by an instrumental including: Deborah Houston, Cheri Monk, Natalie Lentz, Thomas Valdez, and Keith Compton. A soprano solo was performed by Sarah Simoncini.

Thompson composed Frostiana: Seven Country Songs in 1959 for the two-hundredth anniversary of the incorporation of the Town of Amherst, Massachusetts. The work, at times reflective and other times lighthearted, is based on seven Robert Frost poems: The Road Not Taken, The Pasture, Come In, The Telephone, A Girl’s Garden, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, and Choose Something Like a Star.
Season 2009-2010 Board of Directors:

President - Carol Charnock
Vice President - Cathy Compton
Secretary - Sharon Jope
Treasurer - Lynn Monje
Members' Representative - Larry Robinson

Music Director - Michael K. Santana
Associate Music Director - Peter Ullmann
Accompanist - Brenda McAfee