Michele Adams - Conductor
Michele Adams is an active guest conductor, adjudicator, and speaker. This season, she will serve as guest conductor for festivals in NH and MA. Recent engagements include the involvement of children’s choirs in two opera premieres, presenting sessions at the 2016 Eastern Division American Choral Directors Association Conference, and conducting the 2015 and 2013 Rhode Island All-State Choirs. Adams teaches masters level courses at Messiah College as an adjunct professor in the choral conducting program.
Adams served for ten seasons as the Director of Choirs for the award-winning Boston Children’s Chorus (BCC). She conducted choirs of all levels, managed the innovative education program, and administrated the artistic programming for the thirteen choirs and twenty-one-member artistic team. Described as “splendid” (The Wall Street Journal)and “eloquent and perfectly-tuned” (Boston Musical Intelligencer), her choirs collaborated with a rich variety of artists and ensembles, including Kristin Chenoweth, the Boston Pops, and the Portland Symphony Orchestra. She has prepared her singers for major works, including Mahler’sSymphony No. 8, Bernstein’sSymphony No. 3 “Kaddish”, andBritten’sWar Requiem. She created the BCC Professional Development Workshop for music educators, an event now in its ninth year.
Adams has a long history of connecting her work in music education to the community. She has served as a music educator and conductor for students ranging in age from pre-school through adult in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New York, Florida, and South Carolina. She served the American Choral Directors Association as one of the Repertoire and Standards Chairs for the North Central Region. She began her teaching career in the New York City Public Schools where she founded the first choral program in her magnet school and coordinated arts collaborations between the school and community. She has held K-12 teaching certification in three states.
She completed a Master of Music in Choral Conducting at Florida State University, where she studied with Rodney Eichenberger and André Thomas. She earned a Bachelor of Music in Music Education from The University of South Carolina.
Jenny H. Chou – Collaborative Pianist
Jenny H. Chou joined BCC in 2011 as an accompanist. She is a Taiwanese pianist, accompanist, composer, and teacher. She earned her B.A. in Music at the National Taiwan Normal University in Taipei, Taiwan, completed her two masters in Piano Performance and Harpsichord Performance, and also earned a doctorate in Historic Performance at Boston University. She taught chamber music at Harvard University, performed with the Tanglewood Festival Chorus for nine years, and played for MMEA choral festivals, solo and ensemble concerts, and high school musicals, along with a variety of other musical projects in the United States and in Asia. Her recent previous work includes accompanying the choral group In Choro Novo and the Weston and Brookline public school system chorus programs. Her choral compositions are performed widely throughout Asia.