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about
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about
Artistic Director
Janelle McCoy, Mezzo-soprano
Artistic Director Janelle McCoy has excelled at careers as a performer and in marketing. A North Carolina native, Ms. McCoy was introduced to piano at age 4, a love that she currently maintains. Also an accomplished academic, she was one of two students from her state chosen to study abroad while in her teens, thus igniting a life-long passion for art, culture and foreign languages. As a recipient of the Disney Doers and Dreamers Award, she pursued both music and academics in college, becoming a research assistant for the award-winning NC historical trilogy The Catawbans.
Upon relocating to Atlanta to finish her degree, Ms. McCoy worked in market research as an analyst and project manager for companies such as Swissôtel, Pinehurst, Biltmore House and Haverty's. She then became the Director of Customer Service and Client Retention for several Internet companies, such as Ask.com, managing budgets in the hundreds of thousands.
Graduating with top honors while pursuing a successful business career, Ms. McCoy's performance career began to blossom. Hailed for her stagecraft and “sultry” voice, Ms. McCoy performed with world-class orchestras and artists such as the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra; conductors Robert Spano, Donald Runnicles and the late Robert Shaw; bass James Morris; tenor Stuart Neill; sopranos, Dawn Upshaw, Andrea Gruber and Christine Brewer; cellist Andrés Diaz; members of the American String Quartet. In Philadelphia, she made her Kimmel Center debut as Maddalena (Rigoletto). In Aix-en-Provence, she made her debut accompanied by Robin Bowman, pianist.
Other roles and appearances include Suzuki (Madama Butterfly), Hänsel (Hänsel und Gretel), Dorabella (Così fan tutte), Flora (La Traviata), Arsamene (Xerxes), the Mother (Amahl and the Night Visitors).
An advocate of chamber music, Ms. McCoy recently performed works by Jennifer Higdon, Luciano Berio and John Harbison. She was a featured artist during the FL Arts Festival performing Shostakovich with members of the American String Quartet, as well as Villa-Lobos with Andrés Diaz. During the Luzerne Music Festival presented by former Philadelphia Orchestra cellist Bert Phillips, Ms. McCoy performed works by Loeffler. She also collaborated with world-renown classical guitarist Joel Brown on works of de Falla.
Performances by Ms. McCoy have been broadcast on Atlanta’s WABE 90.1 FM and nationally on NPR’s Performance Today.
In addition to being Artistic Director for the Chamber Music Society, she manages her own marketing firm and continues an active classical career performing opera, chamber music and symphonic works. Recently named a “best bet” by Naples Daily News and The News-Press in Ft. Myers, engagements for this season include Bernstein’s Symphony No. 1, Charlotte (Werther), Handel’s Messiah, chamber appearances in the Russian Music Salon and the Chamber Music Society of Southwest Florida, as well as pops concerts for the FL Jewish Philharmonic and Gulf Coast Symphony Orchestras. Ms. McCoy has been named recipient of the American Composers Forum Encore Award Grant for her future performances of new music, an honor not granted to solo classical vocalist in their last
grant cycle. She was nominated by the Alliance for the Arts for an Angel of the Arts Award as the 2008 Best Performance Artist. Ms. McCoy will also serve as distinguished juror for the 2008 Philadelphia Orchestra Concerto Competition.
She currently resides in Ft. Myers, Philadelphia and New York.
Lori Laitman, composer
Lori Laitman is one of America’s most prolific and widely performed composers of art song. “It is difficult to think of anyone before the public today who equals her exceptional gifts for embracing a poetic text and giving it new and deeper life through music.” (Journal of Singing)
Laitman has worked with many of today’s important poets — among them Mary Oliver, Thomas Lux, Paul Muldoon, Dana Gioia, Joyce Sutphen, Margaret Atwood, Toi Derricotte, Annie Finch, David Mason, John Wood, Anne Ranasinghe, and Jerzy Ficowski— in addition to setting such classic poets as Emily Dickinson and William Carlos Williams. Recent U.S. performances of her music have taken place at Weill Recital Hall, Merkin Hall and Alice Tully Hall (New York); Shriver Hall (Maryland); Benaroya Hall (Washington); The Cleveland Institute of Art (Ohio); The Skylight Opera Theatre (Wisconsin); and The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, The Corcoran Gallery and The Kennedy Center (DC). In June 2004, The Cleveland Opera premiered Ms. Laitman’s opera, “Come to Me in Dreams.” Currently, Laitman is composing an opera based on “The Scarlet Letter” with a new libretto by David Mason — for a fall 2008 premiere at The University of Central Arkansas.
Laitman graduated from Yale College and received her M.M. in flute performance from the Yale School of Music. Initially, she focused on composing music for film and theatre, but in 1991 Laitman started composing for voice. Albany Records released her debut CD, "Mystery — The Songs of Lori Laitman" in August 2000, "Dreaming" in May 2003 and “Becoming a Redwood” in October 2006, all to critical acclaim. Laitman’s songs have been recorded on such other labels as Channel Classics, Gasparo, Capstone and Naxos.
For more information about Lori, please visit www.artsongs.com.
Gwen Halstead, pianist
Gwen Halstead enjoys a career as an internationally-sought coach and accompanist. An Australia native, she has worked for institutions such as the Australian Broadcasting Company and Northwestern University, with most of her career being spent at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. She is coach and accompanist for mezzo-soprano Jennifer Larmore and baritone William Powers, to name a few. Also an adviocate of chamber music, she performs frequently throughout North America and Australia. She is currently in residence at Kennesaw University.
To read more about Gwen, please visit her profile at Kennesaw University.
Richard Belcastro, composer
Richard Belcastro is an active composer and musical activist in the Philadelphia area. His music has been called "an eclectic blend of melodic and rhythmic elements of Jazz and Rock and Roll with a uniquely contemporary harmonic vocabulary" - The NY Concert Review. His music is composed for a variety of instrumental combinations ranging from the very traditional to the distinctly odd as well as ventures into electro-acoustic music and purely electronic explorations.
In addition to his work as a composer he is also the Executive Director of the Chamber Music NOW! in Philadelphia where he is focused on bringing the most talented and entertaining performers from around the world to the eyes and ears of the Philadelphia community in unique musical productions and collaborative projects between a variety of arts and media. He also serves as the Assistant Director of Education and Community Partnerships for the Philadelphia Orchestra. His work serves to better connect diverse artistic communities and most importantly to excite and revitalize the classical music audience in and outside of Philadelphia.
To read more about Richard, please visit www.rbelcastro.com.
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Artistic Director
Janelle McCoy
Advisory Board
Lori Laitman
Gwen Halstead
Richard Belcastro
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