Milton Community Concerts
at First Parish
Sharing Ourselves, Reuniting Our Voices:
Music By Carol Koffinke
Sunday, November 6th at 3pm
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On Sunday, November 6 at 3pm Milton Community Concerts will present the compositions of local composer Carol Koffinke in a program for choir and professional soloists. This concert, “Sharing Ourselves, Reuniting Our Voices: Music by Carol Koffinke”, will take place in the historic Meetinghouse at First Parish of Milton, 535 Canton Avenue, and will feature several world premiere performances.
Soloists will be Angela Yam, soprano; Alexandra Dietrich, mezzo-soprano; David Rivera Bozon, tenor; and Keith Eric Brinkley, baritone. The choir is made up of singers from the First Parish Meetinghouse choir, the UCC Norwell choir, and others from choirs around the South Shore. Conductors/pianists Karen Harvey and Timothy Steele will also be joined by violinist Betsy Hinkle. Tickets are $20 general, $10 seniors, and free for 18 and under.
Composer Carol Koffinke began as a writer of poems, plays, and books, several of which were performed and published. Since then she has set many of her poems to music in original settings for solo voice and for choir. Highlighting this program will be the world premiere of “Life”, a work for four soloists, choir, and piano which explores in four distinct phases our universal life journey.
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Artist Headshots and Bios
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Carol Koffinke was raised in a musical family with her father being a prolific composer. She majored in music at Western Maryland College (now called McDaniel College). Her passion is vocal music and she has composed music for solo voice and piano, SATB and piano, SATB with quintet, six-part vocal a cappella, four voice a cappella, and piano quintet. Texts for almost all of her compositions are original.
Carol also has had two books published, two plays performed, and written many poems which often provide the text for her compositions.
She is currently on the Board of Directors for the Masterworks Chorale of Boston, as well as a choral member.
Praised for her “huge, clear voice,” (Daily Gazette), Angela Yam sang with the New York City Ballet as the soprano soloist (Mendelssohn: A Midsummer Night's Dream) and with Opera Saratoga as Johanna (Sweeney Todd), the soprano soloist (Rossini: Petite messe solennelle), and covering Elder (Beecher: Sky on Swings).
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Yam’s 2022-23 season features several premieres, including Breyer’s A Requiem for the Common Man at Carnegie’s Stern Hall, the Siren in The Night Falls (Ludwig-Leone, American Opera Project), the soprano soloist in The Five Elements (Koffinke), and soloist in Fractured Voices (White Snake Projects). Yam will make her company debuts with the New York Philharmonic and Music at the Co-Cath.
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In the 2021-22 season, Yam joined Santa Fe Opera as an Apprentice Singer, performing Cobweb (Britten: A Midsummer Night’s Dream) and covering Agave (Corigliano: Lord of Cries, world premiere). Yam debuted at Fargo-Moorhead Opera as a “wickedly funny and talented” Clorinda (La Cenerentola).
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Yam holds a Graduate Diploma from the New England Conservatory, where she performed as Blanche de la Force (Dialogues of the Carmelites), the Coloratura Soprano (Postcard from Morocco), Calisto (La Calisto), and the soprano soloist (Haydn: Die Schöpfung).
Alexandra Dietrich, a Puerto Rican American originally from Freeport, Maine, is a mezzo-soprano who is being praised for singing with "passion and understanding" and a stage director commended for her "moving" and "brilliant" stagings. Ms. Dietrich joined the University of Southern Maine in the Fall of 2019 as Artist Faculty in Voice. She, herself, is a proud graduate of the University of Southern Maine with a Bachelor's in Music Performance, and attended the Longy School of Music for her Graduate Performance degree in Opera. Her recent performances have included Odyssey Opera's "Henry VIII" where she sang as the Page and as the Alto Soloist in the Metropolitan Chorale and Chorus pro Musica's collaborative performance of Mendelssohn's "Die erste Walpurgisnacht" and Kodály’s "Budavári Te Deum". Ms. Dietrich has performed with many New England area opera companies and orchestras including the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Salem Philharmonic Orchestra, Juventas New Music Ensemble, Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra, OperaHub, and MetroWest Opera where her performance as Jo March in Adamo's "Little Women" was hailed as "large of personality with an instrument to match", possessed "polish and star power", and was awarded the ArtsImpulse Award for Best Female Performer in an Opera for her portrayal. With the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, she has appeared on the BMOP/sound label on Wuorinen's "Haroun and the Sea of Stories" as a Bird soloist and on Dello Joio's "The Trial at Rouen" as part of the Heavenly Voice Trio, which was nominated for a 2021 GRAMMY Award in the Best Opera Recording Category. Other highlights for Ms. Dietrich include singing featured back-up vocals for Josh Groban at Tanglewood at the Koussevitzky Shed. Favorite roles to date include Anita in "West Side Story" with Asheville Lyric Opera, Jade Boucher in the New England premiere of "Dead Man Walking", Carmen in NEMPAC Opera's "Carmen", and as Zita in "Gianni Schicchi" with the North Shore Philharmonic Orchestra, where her performance was toasted as "deliciously bitchy" (Portland Phoenix). As a soloist, she has sung with the Portland Symphony Pops, the North Shore Philharmonic Orchestra, the Charlemagne Orchestra of Belgium, the Midcoast Symphony Orchestra, the Longy Chamber Orchestra, and the Southern Maine Symphony Orchestra. Ms. Dietrich appeared as the alto soloist in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony with the Brown University Orchestra, under the baton of Paul Phillips. In 2009, Ms. Dietrich was awarded both 1st place in the Professional Division of Maine NATS and the coveted Lillian Nordica Award, where she sang a recital in the Lillian Nordica Auditorium on the date of the famous soprano's last recital in the auditorium named in her honor. For more information on Ms. Dietrich's career as a stage director, please visit www.dietrichdirectormezzo.com
David Rivera Bozón is a Colombian tenor, based in Boston, with more than eighteen years of international performance career, and founder of DRBTenor. The core of his career has been to share with love the joy of singing; bringing his voice and heart to different latitudes and communities: From theaters, to flash mobs in bakeries and shopping malls.
He has performed extensively as soloist and part of the ensemble Operas, Zarzuelas, Oratorios, Chamber Music and Voice and Piano recitals. Recent highlights include Cabaret: From Bogotá, to Belcanto to Broadway at the Arctic Playhouse. Guest Artist at the Head of the Charles 2022. Opening Recital for the Nancy Framingham Concert Series at the Morningside Presbiterian Church in Atlanta. Alegría at the Veronica Robles Cultural Center and a Mother Celebration Tour with OrchidSong. NEMPAC Balcony Series at Tresca. An Opera Evening with Veronica Robles Cultural Center. Misa Criolla with Monadnock Choir and Orchestra. Pinkerton cover with Central City Opera. The title role in Mozart's Idomeneo with the New England Conservatory Opera. Dallas from Service Provider by Stephen Weiss with Helios Opera. Some upcoming engagements are: the title role from Werther with Barn Opera for 2022. In 2023: Nemorino from Donizetti’s Elixir of Love with Boston Opera Collaborative (2023) and Mario from Tosca with Opera51 (2023). Mr. Bozón has been a proud Artist in Residence of the Grace Note Farm, Music at the Farm program for four seasons.
David pursued Master of Music with a Graduate Diploma in Vocal Performance from the New England Conservatory and an Undergraduate Degree from the National University of Colombia Conservatory.
For more information, please visit www.davidriverabozon.com
Baritone Keith Eric Brinkley, is a multi-faceted performer with style credits in opera, classical, musical theater, gospel and religious music. He began his formative musical training in church while singing male soprano with the world-renowned Indianapolis Children’s Choir.
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Locally he has performed with companies such as Boston Opera Collaborative (Idomeneo), The Paul Madore Chorale (Faure’s Requiem), Chorus Pro Musica (The Creation), and The Boston Classical Orchestra (Prima la Musica poi le Parole). Keith has sung the baritone solos in Faure’s Requiem as well as in Haydn’s Die Schopfung. He has performed Bob (The Old Maid and the Thief), Don Basilio (Il Barbieri di Siviliglia) and Balthazar (Amahl and the Night Visitors).
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Keith holds a Master of Music degree from Boston University, and a Graduate Performance Diploma from Longy School of Music at Bard College.
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A native of Indianapolis, IN, Keith calls Boston home. Keith has spent several years working in non-profit healthcare management. He has served on the boards of both Boston Singers Resource and Milton Community Chorus. Keith serves on the board of Opera On Tap Boston and is an artist on their roster. Keith is passionate about creating performance opportunities and funding initiatives that promote social change through the arts. This spring Keith will be singing in Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra’s production of La Traviata.
Betsy Hinkle is a Boston-based violinist equally at home on the concert stage and serving her community through equity-based music education, performances, and arts administration. She is the founder of the Boston Public Quartet, dedicated to normalizing the amplification of historically excluded voices in classical music. Betsy has performed throughout New England with orchestras and chamber ensembles, including the Boston Public Quartet, Shelter Music Boston, the Boston Ballet Orchestra, the Orchestra of Emmanuel Music and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project.
Betsy was a 2018-2020 META Fellow of the Massachusetts Cultural Council. Previous honors include serving as the 2017 Alumni Commencement speaker at New England Conservatory, and receiving the 2014 Barbara C. Harris Award for Social Justice.
Betsy founded the non-profit musiConnects.org in 2007 to establish and support educational and artistic residences using an innovative chamber music model. From 2007 - 2017 she served as the organization’s Executive and then Artistic Director and until 2021 served in the role of Resident Musician.
Betsy received her Master of Music in Violin Performance, as well as a Music in Education Concentration, in the studio of Nicholas Kitchen of the renowned Borromeo String Quartet. A native Floridian, she received her Bachelor of Music from the Florida State University, on full academic and music scholarships, and played in the Honors Piano Trio as a Liberace Scholar. She lives in Roslindale with her husband and two children and loves cooking, baking and gardening.
KAREN HARVEY enjoys a career as pianist, educator, conductor and composer. As Minister of Music at UCC, Norwell, MA, she conducts four choirs in a multi- generational music ministry; members of the Sanctuary Choir have sung at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, and at St. Ignatius Church in Rome as part of an International Music Festival. While there, Ms. Harvey conducted the Festival Chorus at St. Peter’s Basilica; at home, she led the Holiday Chorus at Faneuil Hall for several seasons. An M.I.T. Affiliate Artist and two-time Tanglewood Fellow, she has been a featured soloist with numerous orchestras and premiered many compositions, including several written for her. Ms. Harvey has performed with the Cantata Singers in Boston’s Symphony Hall, and served as pianist for the Boston Pops Chorus and Boston Ballet. She recorded two solo piano CDs based upon her Musical Meditations series at UCC.
Timothy Steele is an active vocal coach, collaborative pianist, and conductor, and has taught for twenty-nine years on the opera faculty at New England Conservatory. He has conducted for outreach tours with the Boston Lyric Opera and is a former music director for Opera Providence. He has served as assistant conductor/pianist for over 190 productions with twenty-five opera companies, including Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Boston Lyric Opera, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra, Wolf Trap Opera, Central City Opera, and Opera Maine. He assisted with the Pulitzer Prize winning opera MADAME WHITE SNAKE for productions in Boston and Taiwan and the OUROBOROS TRILOGY in 2016, and for three years collaborated with WaterFire-Providence on a unique and popular series of opera evenings. For the last eight years he has been music director at First Parish of Milton-UU and producer of Milton Community Concerts. In Boston he has performed with Emmanuel Music, the Handel and Haydn Society, and the Commonwealth Shakespeare Company, among others.