Every Kind of Music

I moved to Flossmoor in 1992, with my husband and three sons.  I was impressed and delighted with the area….it became my home.  There was only one thing missing for me—a chamber choir!   I am a choral conductor and had church jobs and teaching jobs and children’s choir jobs and choreography jobs but I wanted somewhere to sing, myself, the music that feeds my soul.  There wasn’t any group of the kind I imagined I wanted to sing with but…..I put the thought on the back burner for a bit while we raised our sons and I worked on my career as a church musician.

We became involved with various classical music organizations in the Southland since our boys loved music, studied music and played with H-F’s musical organizations and SYSO.  My husband was (and is—he’s immediate past president) on the board of the IPO and I directed church choirs, did some program notes writing  and gave lectures about various aspects of all sorts of music and dance.  I became friends with several directors of the larger choral groups in our area and eventho I liked them and thought their groups were fine, I still longed to sing music for smaller groups.

Finally, in the Winter of 2006, I formed the Midwest Motet Society and my dream became reality.  I also felt I was contributing to the classical music scene because there is nothing else like us—and it feels good!

The music we sing is written for smaller groups of singers or even vocal quartets and we sing both secular and sacred music.  We’ve gotten into the habit of singing secular (non-religious) music in the spring and sacred in the fall.  Most of my MMS singers have degrees in music or make music their living somehow—your own church choir director may be singing with me right now—and all longed to sing this music in their own community.  Their voices are gorgeous!  We also have a fairly new tradition of having MMS Member-Conductors—since many of my singers are also choir directors, it seemed like a good idea.  I get to sing when they conduct and its fun for a change to be on the other side of the baton!  

Our spring concert is this Sunday and we are singing Italian Madrigals and German Partsongs.  Tickets are $5 in advance or $7 at the door. Benjamin Amenta, music director at Grace Episcopal Church in New Lenox is the MMS Member –Conductor for this concert.  

www.midwestmotet.org

“From Venice to Vienna: Music from the Salon”

Sunday, June 10, 2012 at 4:00 pm

at Trinity Lutheran Church

2901 Western Avenue,

Park Forest, Illinois