FREE Courtroom Concert featuring the Music of Linda Kachelmeier & David Evan Thomas

Linda Kachelmeier is a composer, conductor, and professional singer based in Saint Paul. Her special passion is for choral music and art song because of their unique capacity to convey emotion through the voice. She is interested in the line and curve of melody, and in rich, rhythmic textures and layers. Her vast experience as a singer and choral conductor has made her a uniquely sensitive composer for voice, writing for children, professionals, and all levels in between. From the individuals’ sounds she strives to create a “company of voices,” incorporating the distinct qualities of the singers into an orchestral texture. Her influences are varied, from medieval chant and polyphony to gospel and folk. Her music has been described as austere but also luscious and fun; she embraces that seeming contradiction.

Linda has composed more than forty works and has been awarded grants sponsored by the Jerome Foundation, the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, the Minnesota State Arts Board, and two Faith Partners residencies. Her work has been commissioned and performed by The Rose Ensemble, Cantus, and The Singers; by the tiny Village Church in downtown Milwaukee and large All-State Honor choirs in Minnesota, North Dakota, and Nebraska; and by the vibrant community choirs Calliope Women’s Chorus and One Voice Mixed Chorus. Her compositions have been performed at the Schubert Club and the Basilica of St. Mary in the Twin Cities, the Getty Art Museum and Carnegie Hall on the coasts, as well as in many school gymnasiums and small churches.

David Evan Thomas

The music of David Evan Thomas has been praised for its eloquence, power, and craft. A two-time McKnight Foundation Fellow, he has also received awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the American Guild of Organists. Thomas has received commissions from the Minnesota Orchestra, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Schubert Club and the American Composers Forum.
Thomas’s music is published by ECS, Augsburg Fortress, and MorningStar, and has been performed by the Minnesota Orchestra, London’s Westminster Cathedral Choir, and the trio of Gil Shaham, Truls Mørk, and Yefim Bronfman. He has served as composer-in-residence with Westminster Presbyterian Church (Minneapolis), the Cathedral of Saint Paul, and from 1997-2005, the Schubert Club.
Born in Rochester, New York in 1958, David Evan Thomas graduated with honors in trumpet from the “Prep” Department of the Eastman School of Music, and received degrees from Northwestern University, Eastman and the University of Minnesota. His teachers have included Dominick Argento, Samuel Adler and Alan Stout, with further study at the Aspen Festival and with David Diamond at the Atlantic Center for the Arts. Thomas lives in Minneapolis, where he is also active as a program annotator, choral singer, pianist and conductor. 

Praised for the “…grace and sensitivity” of her playing as well as her enthusiastic teaching, pianist Ann DuHamel serves as Head of Keyboard Studies at the University of Minnesota, Morris, as well as President-Elect of the Minnesota Music Teachers Association. An ardent proponent of modern music, she enjoys working with and commissioning contemporary composers, and this past season she premiered works of Marc Chan, Luke Dahn, Joseph Dangerfield, Jake Endres, and Edie Hill. In the spring of 2018 she performed across the state for the premiere of Linda Kachelmeier’s song cycle I Give Voice to My Mother, featuring the poetry of Athena Kildegaard, funded by the Minnesota State Arts Board. Ann’s playing and teaching has been described as “… a delight for the ears and the soul.” A versatile artist, her recent engagements include the Bach D minor keyboard concerto and the Bartók sonata for two pianos and percussion. She has collaborated with several musicians, including Maria Jette, soprano; Clara Osowski, mezzo-soprano; Stephen Swanson, baritone; Preston Duncan, saxophone; and Martha Councell, flute. Past performances include venues in twelve countries and over twenty states, including two appearances in Carnegie Weill Recital Hall. Ann earned a DMA from the University of Iowa under the tutelage of Ksenia Nosikova. Prior to her doctoral studies, she was Assistant Director to Paul Wirth at the Central MN Music School. Upcoming performances include recitals in Southeast Asia and across the U.S.

Carrie Vecchione spends her time performing as a freelance oboist in the Twin Cities. She is half of OboeBass! the world’s only professional oboe/bass duo, which was just awarded a Commissioning Grant from Chamber Music America. She teaches at the MacPhail Center for Music. She has two daughters and loves to cook and garden.

Hornist Sarah Schmalenberger teaches studio horn and music history courses for both undergraduate and graduate programs in music at the University of St. Thomas.  An active freelance musician, she is also a musicologist with published research on topics ranging from Frank Zappa to Black American women in concert music, to the medical well-being of women musicians treated for breast cancer.  Currently on sabbatical leave to launch an innovative study on female brass players, Schmalenberger also hopes to publish her memoir on music and resilience.

Gail Olszewski, DMA, has performed chamber and solo recitals on piano, harpsichord, fortepiano, organ and synthesizer in the US, Canada, Europe, Central America and Australia. In the Twin Cities she has a varied free-lance career as a collaborative keyboardist and vocal coach. She plays with members of the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and Minnesota Orchestra and is a member of the period-instrument group The WolfGang, the Stillwater-based chamber ensemble Music St. Croix and Duo Tastiera with harpsichordist Asako Hirabayashi. Gail teaches at MacPhail Center for Music in Minneapolis. She is currently working on an album of piano music by late 19th-early 20th century Finnish composers.  Visit www.gailopiano.com  for more information.

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About the Host

Composer Abbie Betinis writes music called “inventive, richly melodic” (The New York Times), “superb, whirling, soaring” (Tacoma News Tribune), and “the highlight” of the program (Boston Globe).  With over 50 commissioned works for ensembles such as Cantus, the New England Philharmonic, and The Rose Ensemble, Abbie has been awarded a McKnight Composer Fellowship, grants from the American Composers Forum, ASCAP, and Jerome Foundation, and was recently listed in NPR Music’s Top 100 Composers Under 40.  A resident of Saint Paul, she is adjunct professor of composition at Concordia University, and was composer-in-residence with the Schubert Club from 2005-2017.