Jim Crum (bass-baritone) has been an active choral singer in Cobleskill and the Capital District for over 30 years. He attended Fredonia State majoring in voice for several years and subsequently graduated from Paul Smiths College of the Adirondacks where he majored in Forestry and Surveying. He has continued his love of choral music and is active in many choral organizations and a frequent soloist. He is noted for his musical discernment and interpretation. Jim was a founding member of Cobleskill Chamber Singers and Cobleskill Vocal Ensemble. He has been a member of Albany Pro Musica for 12 years and serves on the APM Board of Directors. He also sings with the Cathedral Choir of Men and Boys at the Episcopal Cathedral of All Saints in Albany for major feast days and choral concerts and is a charter member of Aoede Consort. Jim is a Vice President at Lancaster Development, Inc. in Richmondville and serves in many community and church related positions. He lives in Cobleskill and is married to Joanne Darcy Crum. They have one daughter, Darcy, who holds a masters degree in vocal performance from Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Return to top
Keith Kibler has sung opera and the concert repertoire internationally. He has appeared with the orchestras of New Hampshire, Vermont, Portland, Springfield, Worcester, Albany, Rochester, Syracuse, Utica, and Boston, both in Symphony Hall and at Tanglewood. Summer festival appearances include Saratoga, Monadnock, Wolf Trap, Finger Lakes, Norfolk, Aldeburgh, and the Boston Pops at Symphony Hall. His doctorate was earned at Yale University and the Eastman School of Music, and he has won a Beebe Fellowship and the Kneisel Prize. Mr. Kibler teaches voice at Williams College and also in his private studio. His students have been accepted at Peabody Conservatory, New England Conservatory, Hartt School of Music, Juilliard School, Aspen Music School, and Tanglewood. In May 2004, The New Opera, the company he co-founded, featuring rising young singers and conductors, produced its first event, a concert performance of Act II of Le Nozze di Figaro. Subsequent seasons have included concert performances of Mozart’s Don Giovanni (Act I and Act II Finale), Act I of Così fan tutte, Act III of Puccini’s La Bohème, highlights from Richard Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier. Return to top
David Loy (bass-baritone) performed with the Washington Men's Camerata in Washington D.C. for seven years and with the Pittsburgh Camerata in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for 4 years. David founded contemporary acappella group Quarternote which performed mostly doo-wop for five years in the Washington D.C. area. He later founded vocal jazz and doo-wop group InVoice in Pittsburgh, PA which performed regionally for 7 years. InVoice recorded the CD “Out of Nowhere”, and also toured and recorded with the River City Brass Band. David plays bass guitar and has performed with several regional rock bands and at Northway Church in everything from Alternative Rock to Classic Rock to Oldies to Contemporary Christian music. David graduated from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN and is an engineering manager with GE Energy in Schenectady, NY. Return to top
Bass-Baritone Stephen Piwowarski began his musical career on Long Island as a saxophonist with ensembles including the Queensborough Symphonic Band. Leaving Long Island in 2003, he moved to Albany to study music education at The College of Saint Rose where he earned both his Bachelors and Masters of Science degrees in Music Education. Currently, Mr. Piwowarski sings with Aoede Consort and The Choir of Men and Boys at The Cathedral of All Saints in Albany. In addition he has sung with The Saratoga Festival and The New Opera. Mr. Piwowarski is also a substitute teacher in the Waterford-Halfmoon Schools. Mr. Piwowarski has studied voice with soprano Susan Harwood and baritone Woodrow Bynum. He also performs regularly on saxophone. He has recently lectured on and performed works by Paule Maurice and Pierre Max Dubois and is currently researching works for saxophone and organ. Mr. Piwowarski also maintains a small private woodwind studio. Return to top
Soprano Sabrina Elyse Manna, originally from Islip, Long Island, began her music career as a violist in the prestigious Metropolitan Youth Orchestra. Her desire to become a music teacher brought her to the College of Saint Rose in Albany where she earned a Bachelors of Science in Music Education/Voice. In 2003 she was awarded first place in the annual Joel Dolven Mendelssohn Club vocal competition. Miss Manna works for the Averill Park Central School District where she conducts the two high school choirs and teaches string orchestra at West Sand Lake Elementary School. This year, her auditioned high school choir was chosen to participate in the annual High School Choral Festival hosted by Albany Pro Musica at the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall.
In addition to Aœde Consort, Miss Manna appears with Albany Pro Musica and Crescendo, Berkshires. She is a Masters Candidate at Ithaca College where she studies voice with baritone Randie Blooding. Return to top
Soprano Kristin Sands was touring throughout Europe with the critically acclaimed Bernardsville High School Madrigal Ensemble before ever attending Westminster Choir College in Princeton, New Jersey, where she graduated magna cum laude in 1998 with a Bachelor of Music degree in Voice Performance. In the interim years, she sang with The Westminster Symphonic Choir in performance of Britten’s War Requiem (recorded with the New York Philharmonic under the direction of Kurt Masur), Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony (for the highly anticipated opening of the New Jersey Performing Arts Center with the New Jersey Symphony), and Orff’s Carmina Burana (with the Philadelphia Orchestra) to name a few. As a member of the Westminster Choir, she appeared in numerous choral performances, including the Bach’s St. John Passion, Bach’s Magnificat, Verdi’s Requiem, and in the opera choruses of Berg’s Wozzeck and Janacek’s Jenufa for Spoleto festival, U.S.A. After graduating in the spring of 1998, Ms. Sands joined the women of the Westminster Symphonic Choir and the Berlin Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall in performance of works by Mahler and Debussy, under the baton of Claudio Abado. She has appeared in productions of Handel’s Semele and Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte for the Berkshire Opera Company. She has performed in Humperdink’s Hansel and Gretel and Purcell’s Dido and Æneas for Westminster Opera Theatre. Kristin maintains a successful private voice and piano studio in the home she shares with her husband, tenor Stephen Sands. She teaches approximately 45 students on a weekly basis, creatively encouraging their musicianship with a solid grounding in classical technique. For six years, Kristin sang as a section leader and soloist with the Choir of St. Bernard’s Episcopal Church, in New Jersey as well as the Choir of Trinity Church, Wall Street, New York. Ms. Sands is a founding member of the award winning Antioch Chamber Ensemble. Return to top
Tenor Stephen Sands is a graduate of Westminster Choir College, where for four years he sang with the world-renowned Westminster Choir, with whom he toured throughout the United States, Asia, and Europe. He has performed under the batons of some of the world’s most noted and admired conductors, among them Kurt Masur, Wolfgang Sawalish, and John Rutter. He appears in recordings such as The New York Philharmonic’s 1997 recording of the Britten War Requiem, and National Public Radio’s 1997 tribute to Franz Schubert and Johannes Brahms. Praised for a stunning flexibility and uniquely beautiful lyric vocal quality, Mr. Sands is at home with an impressive range of musical material. As both a soloist and member of the chorus, he has appeared in critically acclaimed productions of such challenging operas as Berg’s Wozzeck, Britten’s avant garde Curlew River, Janacek’s Jenufa, and the American premiere of the same composer’s The Adventures of Mr. Broucek for Spoleto Festival, U.S.A. He has performed and recorded with Fuma Sacra, one of the east coast’s foremost early vocal ensembles. Mr. Sands has been seen as the Evangelist in numerous performances of Bach’s St. John Passion. Stephen appeared in the Carmel Bach Festival in the Summer of 2008 under mæstro Andrew Megill. Mr. Sands teaches vocal music in the public school system full time and has been a soloist with the choir of Trinity Church Wall Street, New York and the Vox Vocal Ensemble. Mr. Sands is a founding member of the award winning Antioch Chamber Ensemble. Return to top
Tenor John E. Schreiner began singing with church choirs as a boy in Kalamazoo, Michigan. His undergraduate study at Kalamazoo College combined mathematics and music, including a semester in Budapest where he studied math at the Technical University and sang with the Matthias Church choir. After college, he served an apprenticeship with C. B. Fisk, Inc. organbuilders in Gloucester, Massachusetts and, with them, has built organs for churches and concert halls in Switzerland, Japan, South Korea, and throughout the US. His company, Schreiner Pipe Organs, Ltd. in Schenectady, builds new pipe organs for churches and schools, tailored to suit the musical needs for each situation. Schreiner has performed with church and community choirs for most of his life. In addition to singing with Aoede Consort, he is a member of Albany Pro Musica and the Choir of Men and Boys at the Cathedral of All Saints in Albany. Return to top
