NEW SALEM — The 38-member Quabbin Valley Pro Musica, under the direction of composer and conductor Geoffrey Hudson, will close its fall-winter season by performing "Songs of Praise and Passion: Baroque Choruses of Handel and Durante" on Sunday, January 28 at 3 p.m. in the Central Congregational Church, 93 South Main Street, Orange.
The resident chorus of the 1794 Meetinghouse, Inc., in New Salem, is comprised of singers from the North Quabbin and Pioneer Valley regions, and will be accompanied by the Quabbin Valley Pro Musica Ensemble.
The choral members will perform a selection of choruses from Georg Friedrich Handel's oratorios "Hercules" and "Solomon," as well as Francesco Durante's triumphant "Magnificat."
About the Conductor
This concert marks Geoffrey Hudson’s return to Quabbin Valley Pro Musica after a hiatus of ten years; he previously directed QVPM from 2001-2007. He also directs the chorus at Greenwood Music Camp in Cummington and serves as music director of Pioneer Valley Cappella in Northampton.
A composer as well as conductor, Hudson’s most recent work, “The Quartet Project,” is a six-volume collection of graduated string quartets modeled on Béla Bartók’s Mikrokosmos. The full collection was published in 2016, accompanied by a CD featuring performances by the Chiara, Parker, Miró, Brooklyn Rider, Borromeo, and Apple Hill quartets. In November 2017, a suite from “The Quartet Project” was featured at the International Society for Contemporary Music’s “World New Music Days” in Vancouver.
Hudson received his undergraduate degrees at Oberlin College, where he studied American history and composition (with Richard Hoffmann), and earned a Master’s in composition at New England Conservatory, where his principal teacher was Malcolm Peyton.
Collaborative pianist
Judy Johnson received a Bachelor of Arts in Music from California State University, Sacramento and did graduate studies at Melbourne University in Australia, UMass Dartmouth, UNH Durham and Westminster Choir College in Princeton, New Jersey.
Johnson ran an independent piano and voice studio for over twenty-five years, and is a former president of the New Hampshire Music Teachers Association. She has accompanied and directed church choirs in Australia and New Hampshire, and is currently the Music Director at Mission Covenant Church in Orange. Judy was the founding director of the Nashua Choral Ensemble, an ambassador group from the then Nashua Symphony Choral Society (now the Symphony NH Chorus), and led this group for eight years.
Judy has been the collaborative pianist for the Quabbin Valley Pro Musica since 2011. She has also collaborated with amateur music theater groups, school choirs and shows, church soloists and choirs of all ages, and community choruses in California, Australia and New Hampshire. In her spare time, she enjoys quilting and genealogy.
Chorus members include:
Sopranos —Judy Bisinger, Lynn Boudreau, Candi Fetzer, Rachel Gonzalez, Jennifer Gray, Susan Marshall, Linda Overing, Jean Partridge, Allison Pollitt, Carolyn Brown-Senier, Cathy Tyng
Altos — Jo-Anne Chapin, Deborah D’Amico, Charlene Deam, Lisa Finestone, Janet Haley, Wendy Howes, Judy Johnson, Betsy Pelz, Deborrah Porter, Joyce Sawyer, Phyllis Stone
Tenors — Richard Chase, John DeWitt, Lynn Dudley, Ken Johnson, Becky Krause-Hardie, Phil Rabinowitz, Adam Bergeron
Basses — Chuck Berube, Hugh Field, Harry Haldt, Al Hudson, Norman Macleod, Paul Maier, Bill Oldach, Jim Perkins, Mike Ross, Paul Shallers.
Quabbin Valley Chamber Ensemble:
Violins — Sarah Briggs, Colleen Jennings. Viola — Gregory Diehl. Cello — Wayne Smith.
The Quabbin Valley Pro Musica received support from the local cultural councils of Amherst, Athol, New Salem, Northfield, Orange, Pelham, Petersham, Royalston, and Wendell.
Monday night rehearsals begin for the next semester on Feb. 5, concluding with a concert in June. The chorus welcomes new singers.