ADAM COLE (bass), the grandson of a lifelong church organist, became enthralled with early music at a tender age upon hearing the sacreligious strains of Wendy Carlos's "Switched-On Bach" records, and he has been a hopeless case ever since. Hastily bundled off to a distant boarding school at 15 after ruining his parents' classical LP collection, Adam studied pipe organ performance with Robert H. Murphy (Interlochen Arts Academy) and Paula Pugh Romanaux (Kalamazoo College), deafening many an unsuspecting church congregation along the way before turning a baleful eye toward vocal music. Adam quickly found himself in constant demand (being wanted in several jurisdictions for Disturbing the Peace), and he soon fled to Northern California. There, disguised as a choirman and soloist, he has plagued Bay Area ensembles for over a decade, including AVE, Schola Cantorum San Francisco, Choralis, California Bach Society, Chora Nova, Pacific Collegium, Grace Cathedral Choir of Men & Boys, Josquin Singers, Midsummer Mozart Festival Chorus, SF Bach Choir & Concentus, Stanford Early Music Singers, and SF Renaissance Voices. Having mastered the black art of human cloning long before it became respectable, Adam and his self-styled "Chorale" of eponymous virtual automatons also enjoy recording his favorite masses, motets and secular shanties, in which he sings ll voice parts from bass to treble. As an amateur arranger, Adam is an all-too frequent contaminator of the Choral Public Domain Library of online music editions.

ANDREA KLINE (alto, on leave this spring) was born and raised in the Bay Area. As an undergraduate she majored in music and voice at UC Santa Cruz, and then went on to graduate studies in conducting at the Yale School of Music. Andrea has been an active performer in the area, singing with the SF Choral Artists, SF Renaissance Voices, AVE, Pacific Collegeum, Schola Cantorum, and Choralis. Andrea and her husband John live in Saratoga with their three daughters Francesca, Rosalie, and Elizabeth.

ATHENA KIRK (alto, on leave this spring) Athena Kirk is a graduate student in the Classics department at the University of California at Berkeley. In the last few years she has performed with several vocal ensembles in the Bay Area, including the UC Chamber Chorus, Perfect Fifth, Pacific Collegium, Josquin Singers, Choralis, and the choir at St. Joseph of Arimathea in Berkeley. Before moving to the west coast she was a choral fellow of the Harvard University Choir and the singer in a short-lived, nameless band.

CARL BOE (tenor, founding member, IT guru) grew up in Idaho and began singing in church choirs in grade school. Mostly, these were informal, loosely organized — and bad. Influential mentors and instructors appeared on the scene when he was in middle school, in the form of enthusiastic church music directors, newly arrived from Westminster Choir College. Thus followed vocal lessons, touring, vocal camps, and inculcation of a love for choral music. High school chorus and his first choral ensemble at Oberlin College were complete disappointments by comparison. Fortunately, in his sophomore year at Oberlin, he stumbled across the early music group, Collegium Musicum, headed by an eclectic professor in love with the music of Renaissance Spain. After graduation, Carl put singing on hold and began a three year experiment (unsuccessful) in the corporate world, before beginning graduate school in demography at UC Berkeley. After not singing for several years, he came across the odd ad in the local musicians wanted section of the paper: "Wanted, sight singers to sing 16th Spanish Renaissance music". Destiny called and he has been singing in the Bay Area without a break ever since, most recently with the San Francisco Choral Artists.

CECILIA LAM (soprano, choir manager) is an East Coast transplant in San Francisco who has found a welcoming and fulfilling home in the Bay Area choral world. In addition to Chalice Consort, Cecilia has worked and sung with International Orange Chorale, Artists' Vocal Ensemble (AVE), Schola Cantorum, San Francisco Festival Chorale, and San Francisco Choral Artists. She also enjoys playing piano in an amateur chamber piano trio, organizing Christmas caroling expeditions, and switching between soprano and alto. Other memorable musical experiences include singing Thomas Tallis' Spem in Alium with Kristina Boerger and Christopher Caines Dance Company, performing Carmina Burana in the Grand Teton Mountains, and playing piano in a performance of West Side Story while suffering from appendicitis. In her spare time, she works at Moody's Investors Service, dragon boats with SF Rainbow Koi and enjoys rock climbing, golf, hiking, cooking, eating, working out, reading, tennis, and daydreaming. Cecilia received a MS Accounting/MBA degree from Northeastern University and a Bachelors in Mathematics with Economics and Music minors at Wellesley College.

When Celeste Winant (alto) was a tween, she wanted nothing more than to be the Matthew Broderick character in LadyHawke.  As a gawky adolescent, she combed the stacks of UCSD's main library for arrangements of renaissance dance tunes for soprano recorder (self-taught).  She wanted to join the Society for Creative Anachronism in college, but thankfully found that even her geekery had limits, as she had no interest in arguing for hours over authentic medieval needlepoint practice or in whacking worthy opponents over the head with foam-covered broadswords.  She finally found music to be the best creative outlet for her renaissance sensibility.  She is thrilled to be singing her first set with Chalice Consort.  She maintains an active performing schedule with numerous other chamber vocal and early music ensembles throughout the Bay Area, notably AVE (Artists’ Vocal Ensemble), the new Ars Nova group, HOCKET, Pacific Collegium, Philharmonia Chorale, and Volti..  Her voice has been described as a “true rich alto” by San Francisco Classical Voice.  She has studied with Karen Clark, Paul Flight, and Marika Kuzma.

CHRIS MCCRUM (tenor) is a native of Philadelphia. Chris grew up in Oxford, England where he sang as a boy chorister with various college choirs.  At Exeter University in England he diversified into various Gilbert and Sullivan solo roles from which he learned that working on stage with animals and banjos is a high risk form of entertainment. Pining for warmer climes he moved to the Bay Area and while pursuing a career in banking he has had the good fortune to sing with diverse groups including American Bach Soloists, Philharmonia Chorale, San Francisco Choral Artists, SF Symphony Chorus and he has served as tenor section leader at various Bay Area churches. 

After somewhat unsuccessfully seeking to balance family life, music and work in investment management, Chris is pleased this year to be taking time away from work and focusing more energy in singing, playing the harpsichord and learning the organ. He lives in Burlingame with his wife Liz, daughter Zoe, 3 cats and a corgi named Pixie.

DAVE SIRONEN (baritone/countertenor), a pharmacist, baritone and occasional countertenor grew up in Rhode Island. Auditioning on a whim for a choir in high school changed him forever and led to a lifelong love of choral music, particularly of the Rennaisance and Baroque periods (Josquin, Heinrich Schutz and Bach are his personal musical Gods). Since moving here in 1991 he has sung with many Bay Area choral groups including the church choirs of St. Ignacius and Grace Cathedral, The Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and San Francisco Choral Artists. Besides the Chalice Consort, Dave also sings with the St. Monica Church Choir and is an avid cook and wine collector.

JEFF PHILLIPS (bass, founding member, on leave this season) began singing early in life, receiving encouragement to continue his training by ranking among the top 7th-grade cambiata tenors in western Tennessee; in Memphis he also made memorable contributions in guitar choir (and if you've never heard the sound of 40 junior high school kids playing "Proud Mary" on guitar, well, good for you). He gratefully relocated to the Bay Area in time for high school, where he sang with the Oakland Youth Chorus, the U.C. Berkeley Chamber Chorus, Baroque Arts Ensemble, Sacred & Profane, and most recently the San Francisco Choral Artists, prior to joining the Chalice Consort. Jeff enjoys spending his moments of free time with his family of five females (young daughters, cats, and his wife Katie).

JENNIFER OWEN (soprano) is a New England native who spent much of her childhood longing for the warmer climes of California. Since migrating westward, she has performed with a variety of Bay Area ensembles including Artists Vocal Ensemble (AVE), San Francisco Choral Artists, California Bach Society, San Francisco Renaissance Voices and Eya! (a new female vocal trio specializing in medieval and Baroque music). She was honored to sing in the North American premiere of Alessandro Striggio’s epic Missa sopra “Ecco sì beato giorno” in cinque corri divisa at the Berkeley Festival in June 2008. Jenni currently serves as soprano soloist/section leader at St. Dominic’s Church in San Francisco, where she will be featured in Mozart’s Requiem in November 2008 and was soprano soloist on their European tour in 2006. Previously, she performed and toured internationally with professional choirs in Indiana and the Philadelphia area – including the Pro Arte Singers, Choir of St. Clement’s and the Princeton Singers – and recorded for Harmonia Mundi, Dorian, Ethereal and several independent labels. Jenni completed her Masters degree in Vocal Performance at Indiana University’s Early Music Institute, a second Masters in Arts Administration at Indiana University, and her Bachelors in Music and Biology at Swarthmore College.

JOSH BLACK (tenor/baritone) was born in Missoula, MT, but spent his formative years in Salt Lake City, UT. Josh comes from a musical family, and has been singing around the family piano, the campfire, and at church almost since he could talk. In high school, he studied the trombone and was active in the band and choir programs. He received his bachelor of music from the University of Oklahoma in vocal performance, then moved to Kansas City, MO, where he was active in the local music scene and was a section leader for a Methodist church choir. Josh has performed the roles of Nemorino in L'elisir d'amore, Rodolfo in La Boheme, Alfredo in La Traviata, and Rinuccio in Gianni Schicchi in such exotic locales as Norman, OK, Schroon Lake, NY, and Eureka Springs, AR. He is currently the tenor section leader at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Oakland where he can be seen and heard weekly. During the work week, Josh is a banker and enjoys commuting to work every day on his bicycle. He lives in the Lower Haight with three roommates and two cats.

KANEEZ MUNJEE (soprano, founding member, graphics designer) has been heard in choirs all around the Bay Area since arriving at U.C. Berkeley in the 1990s. Her main love is of the Renaissance and Baroque repertoires, which she has performed with groups such as the California Bach Society and Pacific Collegium, most recently joining the Philharmonia Chorale for the North American premiere of Alessandro Striggio's 40- and 60-voice Missa sopra Ecco sì beato giorno at the 2008 Berkeley Festival & Exhibition. She is also enthusiastic about later masterworks for choir and orchestra, and this season will sing Mahler's Symphony No. 8 with the San Francisco Symphony Chorus and Vaughan Williams' Dona nobis pacem with the Marin Symphony Chorus. Her most recent recording projects include a disc of international folk music by the Festival Singers of Marin, and a soon-to-be-released disc of English Renaissance funeral music with San Francisco Renaissance Voices. Kaneez is currently completing a joint Ph.D. in music and humanities from Stanford University, with a dissertation on the figure of Orpheus in French Baroque cantatas; she is also active in the Bay Area musical community as a writer for San Francisco Classical Voice and as a program annotator.

LINDASUSAN ULRICH (alto, founding member, editor) is a musician and writer known for her humor, her depth, her engaging live performances, and her absolute love of language. She is currently recording and producing her second album of original music, Consequences of Seeing in the Dark. When asked to describe her music, she calls it the songcraft of Ani DiFranco getting a hug from Celia Cruz and a tip of the hat from Stewart Copeland. Lindasusan is also an accomplished choral singer, and has performed with such notable ensembles as Philharmonia Baroque Chorale, Choralis, American Bach Soloists, Pacific Collegium, Midsummer Mozart Festival, and UC Berkeley Chamber Chorus, with whom she toured internationally. She has served as the section leader at St. Francis Lutheran Church for many years, and is proud to be a founding member of Chalice Consort. Music is not the only outlet for Lindasusan’s creativity. A published author, she is currently working on her second collection of haiku and a series of humorous essays. She also blogs (lindasusan.blogspot.com), paints, advocates for bisexual visibility and sustainable transportation, and knits a mean fisherman’s sweater. Lindasusan works as the Communications Manager/Writer for Horizons Foundation, an LGBT community foundation based in San Francisco, where she lives with her wife Emily.

Mark Shattuck (bass) was born. And at birth, he was instantly drawn to music. He graduated from dabbling in trumpet to piano,and eventually ending up with just his voice and a bad $12 haircut. He has sung with Volti, and most recently with San Francisco Choral Artists. Mark has sung in many mystical and unusual places such as: Split, Croatia; Herzliya, Israel; and Pecs, Hungary.

VERAH GRAHAM (alto) loves singing early music and is delighted to be in Chalice Consort. She is also currently a member of VOLTI (by way of something Completely Different!), with whom she has sung since 2000. She has also sung in the chorus of San Francisco Opera’s production of Saint Francois d’Assise, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra Chorale, San Francisco Symphony Chorus, and the Los Angeles Master Chorale. She has been a section leader at St. Paul’s Church in Oakland since 2003, where she sings whatever part they’re short. Ms. Graham has appeared as Joanne in the Stephen Sondheim show Company, Ruth in The Pirates of Penzance, Katisha in The Mikado, the Mother in Amahl and the Night Visitors, Miss Todd in The Old Maid and the Thief, Elsie Maynard in a concert performance (where it did not matter that she could look over the tenor’s head) of The Yeomen of the Guard, and Ellen in the Ned Rorem opera Three Sisters Who Are Not Sisters. Also a free-lance wet-ink illustrator and calligrapher, Ms. Graham works in a law firm in downtown Oakland. She lives in Oakland with four annoying catz, walks to work, and rides her bicycle every chance she gets.