An extraordinary take on music education

Handel and Haydn Society’s Vocal Quartet and piano accompanist entertain and teach young audiences with their colorful interpretations of music from different composers and historical eras. Vocal Quartet performers engage students with humor and dialogue, vocal techniques and props, to offer an extraordinary take on music education.

An informal classroom setting encourages students to respond directly to the music, with opportunities to interact with musicians through an appealing quiz show format. Each Vocal Quartet program also features a Q&A session that allows artists to speak candidly about their backgrounds, training, and professional careers.

The Society offers these presentations to elementary and high schools at no cost, reaching more than 10,000 students annually in Boston, Brockton, Cambridge, Lawrence, Lowell, Lynn, Medford, Quincy, and Woburn.

See images from a Vocal Quartet performance.
Where Are They Now? Read about past Vocal Quartet members.

Rotating shows include:

Voices of History traces nine centuries of classical and popular music from Gregorian chant to the 21st century.

Voices of the Stage features music from Orfeo ed Euridice to Rent to show how opera, oratorio, and musical theater each tell a story through music.

What’s an Oratorio? introduces the grand genre through music of the great oratorio masters of the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, starting with George Frideric Handel.

Voices of America (new for 2012) features music illustrating the US’s formative years up to 1880 and the establishment of the Handel and Haydn Society in 1815. Meets current MCAS English and US History curriculum guidelines for grades 5–6 and 10–11.

Meet the Vocal Quartet

• Sonja Tengblad, soprano
  Sonja DuToit Tengblad, soprano, is a versatile performer, with credits spanning the Renaissance era through the latest music of the 21st century. Recent highlights include Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro as Susanna, Haydn's Die Shöpfung as Eva, and appearances as the soprano soloist for Brahm’s Ein Deutsches Requiem with the National Lutheran Choir and members of the Minnesota Orchestra, Bach's B Minor Mass with Boston's Back Bay Chorale, and John Rutter’s Requiem at Carnegie Hall.

  A lover of new music, Ms. Tengblad premiered the role of Maria in Diego Luzuriaga's El Niño de los Andes with VocalEssence of Minnesota, and was the soprano soloist for the American premiere of Siegfried Matthus' Te Deum for 5 soloists, symphony orchestra, choir and boy's choir, and for the world premiere of Carol Barnett's The World Beloved, A Bluegrass Mass (available through Clarion recordings). Ms. Tengblad also appeared in a concert celebrating the 80th birthday of composer Dominic Argento where the Minnesota Star Tribune reported her to have given "the most affective performance of the evening".

  An active ensemble singer, Ms. Tengblad performs with the Handel and Haydn Society Chorus, the 5-time Grammy-nominated ensemble Conspirare out of Austin, Texas; the Oregon Bach Festival Chorus; Vox Humana out of Nashville, Tennessee; Lorelei, and Old North Congregational Church in Marblehead. Sonja is a Choral Artist with the Metropolitan Opera Guild Urban Voices school program and lead teacher for the Cantata Singers Classroom Cantatas project. She is a graduate of St. Olaf College, where she earned a B.A. in Vocal Music Education.

• Carrie Cheron, mezzo-soprano
  Carrie Cheron holds degrees from Indiana University (BA Voice with a minor in French) and New England Conservatory (MM Vocal Performance). She was a music teacher for AileyCamp Boston and is the alto soloist at Old South Church, Boston. Carrie has performed with Boston Baroque, Boston Secession, Exsultemus, Philovox, and Vox Consort.

  Ms. Cheron is also active on Boston's folk music scene — her song "Indiana" was featured on Bay State Sound's Best of Boston Songwriters, Showcase CD, Volume V, and her song "How I Loved" received an Honorable Mention from the John Lennon Songwriting Contest. She was invited to perform in the 2006 NEMO Music Makers Competition, the Midwest Music Summit, and was a semi-finalist in the 2006 Great Waters Folk Festival songwriting contest. Carrie was also selected to perform as the Sonicbids artist at both the 2007 Great Waters Folk Festival and First Night Boston 2008 and 2009. She received an Honorable Mention from both the 2011 Rocky Mountain Folks Fest and the Connecticut Folk Festival Songwriting Contests.

  Carrie has shared the stage with and opened for such artists as Edie Carey, Liz Longley, The Barra MacNeils, Northern Lights, Anais Mitchell, David Jacobs-Strain, Trina Hamlin, Colleen Sexton, and Erik Balkey. She has performed in some of the Boston area’s most popular venues, including Club Passim, The Burren, Toad, Cantab Lounge, The Marblehead Festival of Arts, Cambridge Multicultural Arts Center, Lowell Earth Day Festival, Midway Café, Zeitgeist Gallery, Kendall Café, All Asia Café, Abbey Lounge, and New England Conservatory’s famed Jordan Hall. She has performed at Club Passim’s Cutting Edge of the Campfire Festival, and has graced the stage at New York City’s legendary Bitter End and The Living Room, Chicago’s famed Uncommon Ground, Cleveland’s Barking Spider Tavern, the 2006 Mountain Stage NewSong Festival, and the 2007 Great Waters Folk Festival.

• Christian Figueroa, tenor
  Born and raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Christian has found much success in a wide range of vocal styles and characterizations. He is a graduate of Syracuse University and received his Masters in Opera Performance from the New England Conservatory of Music. In the past few seasons Christian’s career has led him to play Ezekiel Cheever in The Crucible, Alphonse in La Vie Parisienne, Vitellozo in Lucrezia Borgia, Patacha in L’etoile and Toby Higgins in The Rise and Fall of The City of Mahagonny, all with Opera Boston. Christian was a Young Artist at the Opera North Company where he played El Remendado in Carmen and Count Almaviva in their outreach production of The Barber of Seville. Some musical theater roles include Che in Evita, Ike Skidmore in Oklahoma, Manny Muñoz in City of Angels, Lt. Peter Wright in The Secret Garden and Father Bernard in Candide. Christian’s passion for jazz has led him to performances at the Newport Jazz Festival and at Jazz at Lincoln Center. He is currently recording his debut album of original music with producer Damian Fernandez; for updates go to www.Christian-Figueroa.com.
• RaShaun Campbell, baritone
  RaShaun Campbell is a graduate of Oklahoma City University (B.M. Vocal Performance, Master’s candidate coursework in Opera Performance) and received his Artist Diploma in Opera Performance from the Longy School of Music in 2008. Mr. Campbell has performed title roles in UTA Opera Theatre productions of Le Nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, and Falstaff. He has also appeared in ensemble casts and smaller roles with the Fort Worth Opera Company, OCU Opera Theatre, UTA Opera Theatre, and Boston Lyric Opera. RaShaun has sung in choral works such as Requiems by Faure, Durufle, and Mozart, Stravinsky’s Les Noces, and Mozart’s Mass in D. He has also studied Meisner and Stanislavski acting techniques.
• David C. Robbins, pianist
  Pianist David C. Robbins is an artistic leader adapted to a wide range of musical styles, ensembles, and instruments. Since 2007, he has been a section pianist for groups such as the Virginia Symphony, New Bedford Symphony, and Plymouth Philharmonic; and in 2007, the Virginia Symphony featured him as a soloist on Saint-Saens’s Carnival of the Animals and Stravinsky’s Petroushka. Mr. Robbins has performed alongside many world-class musicians, such as Richard Stoltzman and James Galway, performed in the world premiere of Kenneth Fuch’s Eventide, and performed on the first North American tour of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Whistle Down the Wind. Mr. Robbins has also performed at many distinguished venues, such as Symphony Hall (Boston), Jordan Hall, Emmanuel Church, Zeiterion Theater, Chrystler Hall, Ferguson Center for the Arts, Chandler Recital Hall, and Sandler Center for the Arts — in notable festivals and ensembles, such as the Virginia Arts Festival, Summer Institute for Contemporary Performance Practice (Stephen Drury, director), Charles Ives Festival (John Heiss, director), New Music Brandeis, Leonard Bernstein Music Festival, Shenandoah Summer Music Theater, Shenandoah Performs, Brevard Music Center, and Adamant Music School. Mr. Robbins has been a pianist and/or choral director for the New England Conservatory’s Women’s Chorus, Broadway Across America, Andover Philips Academy, City of Newton Public Schools, Turtle Lane Playhouse, St. Andrew Lutheran Church (Portsmouth, VA), and Unitarian Congregation of Mendon & Uxbridge (MA). In 2003, he won first prize in the Old Dominion University Classical Period Piano Competition, performing Beethoven’s Piano Sonata #32 in C Minor, Op. 111. He holds performance degrees from New England Conservatory and Shenandoah Conservatory.

Vocal Quartet Booking Information:

To book Voices of the Stage, contact Young Audiences of Massachusetts at 617 629 9262 or scheduling@yamass.org.
To book Voices of America , please contact Robin Baker at 617 262 1815 x126 or rbaker@handelandhaydn.org.