THE ARTISTIC DIRECTOR -
CONSTANCE CHASE

Newly appointed Director of the Connecticut Chamber
Choir, Constance
Chase leads an active professional life in
Connecticut
and
New York
as a performer, voice teacher, conductor and author.
Celebrating her tenth season as director of the Cadet Glee
Club of the
United States
Military
Academy
at
West Point
, Ms. Chase has overseen its growth from thirty to eighty
members and reinvigorated the choir’s national
reputation. Under her direction the Glee Club has
performed at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Tanglewood and
the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, completed
concert tours of the East and West Coasts, performed at
Ground Zero on the first anniversary of the World Trade
Center tragedy, appeared with the Boston Pops, the U.S.
Army Band, and the Syracuse and Greater Newburgh Symphony
Orchestras, given scores of concerts annually throughout
the United States and produced multiple new recordings:
the CD Live
at Notre Dame (2008), the DVD/CD Stand
Ye Steady (2005) with guest artists Lea Salonga
and Daniel Rodriguez; the CD Voice of the Corps (2003),
the choir’s first full-length release since 1966; and
the original hymn Mansions
of the Lord for the closing credits of the
Paramount feature film We
Were Soldiers (2002). Most recently the Glee Club
recorded for country artist Trace Adkins’ forthcoming
CD, due for a June 2008 release, and recorded a
forthcoming PBS special with pianist Marina Arsenijivic
and the US Military Academy Band. The Glee Club is also in
frequent demand for nationally televised appearances by
invitation of Lifetime Network, Yankee Stadium,
Madison
Square
Garden
, the Fiesta Bowl, the BCS National Championship, the
Breeders Cup and Super Bowl XXXIX.
She is an adjunct professor of voice at
Western
Connecticut
State
University
’s
School
of
Visual
and Performing Arts, teaching Applied Voice and Voice
Workshop. Her private voice students are state and
national award winners of NATS, MTNA and NFAA competitions
and continue their studies at the nation’s finest
conservatories and schools of music, including Oberlin,
Eastman and
Indiana
University
. She is co-author with Shirlee Emmons of Prescriptions
for Choral Excellence, Oxford University Press
(2006). The book for choral directors and singers applies
new principles of voice science, leadership and
performance psychology to the choral setting. A lyric
soprano and accomplished soloist in recital and chamber
works, Ms. Chase has also performed and served as
rehearsal assistant with The Riverside Choral Society in
New York City, Patrick Gardner, Director, most notably in
its critically acclaimed Mostly Mozart Festival
appearances under the direction of Louis Langree, Nicholas
McGegan and Gerard Schwarz.
Ms. Chase was founding and Artistic Director of the
Hudson Valley Chorale in its 2007-08 inaugural season.
Additional expertise derives from more than twenty
years of practical and professional experience in
leadership issues, functioning as the wife of an Army
colonel while living around the world, and eleven years of
elite performance/performance enhancement study with
eminent performance psychologist Alma Thomas. A dynamic
presence in the studio and in performance, Ms. Chase’s
early training and extensive professional experience as a
flutist, pianist, and instrumental and choral director
made possible a wealth of musical experience during the
years of frequent military moves.
Ms. Chase holds the B.M., magna
cum laude, from the
University
of
North Carolina
at
Greensboro
, the M.A. in Voice Performance from
Hunter
College
, City University of New York, where she studied with
Shirlee Emmons, and Zertifikat
in German language studies from Goethe Institute,
Schwäbisch Hall
,
Germany
. She was named to Pi Kappa Lambda as an undergraduate
music student and won the Agnes M. Duffy Prize at
Hunter
College
. She is a member of ACDA (American Choral Directors
Association), and NATS (National Association of Teachers
of Singing), and currently serves as Secretary of the NATS
Connecticut chapter.