The ST. MICHAEL'S SINGERS is a chamber music vocal ensemble comprised primarily of dedicated multitalented adult volunteers: Sopranos Clare Stokes (bass guitar), Susan Shearer, and Esther Jennings, Caitlin Wildes, Altos Sue Camp, Karen B. Evans, and Susan Halbert (viola/erhu), Tenor Phil Camp, Baritone (percussion) Jim Milligan, Richard Calatayud, and Bass Gary Miller. St. Michael's Singers are regularly joined by guest musicians e.g. Mikesch Müecke, and Alachua Consort members Annemieke Pronker-Coron, violin and John Netardus, oboe. St. Michael's Singers rehearses Thursday evenings 7:30-9pm, Sunday mornings 9:30-10:15am, and sings each Sunday at the 10:30 a.m. service, as well as for special services and Holy Days at St. Michael's Episcopal Church in Gainesville, Florida. The ensemble's repertoire ranges from Medieval plainsong, Renaissance motets, and Baroque cantatas, to 19th and 20th century anthems, and 21st century hymns. During 2008-9 St. Michael's Singers sang major choral works such as Tomas Luis da Vittoria's O Magnum Mysterium, Giovanni Pergolesi's Laudate pueri, Mozart's Laudate Dominum, Maurice Duruflé’s Ubi caritas, Fauré's Cantique de Jean Racine, Messiaen's O Sacrum Convivium, and anthems by Hildegard von Bingen, Guillaume DuFay, Heinrich Isaac, Thomas Tallis, William Billings, Michael Praetorius, Giovanni da Palestrina, J.S. Bach, Hans Leo Hassler, Lena McLin, Franz Schubert, Gustav von Holst, John Rutter, and Olivier Messiaen. The choir is directed by Dr. Miriam Zach who assumed her duties as St. Michael's Director of Music and Organist in April 2008. She is continuing the musical legacy of William MacGowan, Choir Director & Organist Emeritus who generously donated his Schlicker pipe organ and Ott regal to St. Michael's in 2008.
DR. MIRIAM S. ZACH (minerva@ufl.edu), musicologist, organist, and harpsichordist, is Assistant Professor of Music in the Honors Program at the University of Florida where she teaches Music History, and Music and Health courses, and was named Professor the Year (2000). After completing degrees at Northwestern University and the University of Chicago, she lived in Germany teaching piano at the Universität Bielefeld, singing in the Kantorei St. Nicolai in Lemgo, was organist for the British Army of the Rhine-Church of England, and toured Europe with her husband, Dr. Mikesch Muecke (Associate Professor of Architecture, Iowa State University) with whom she edited the book Resonance: Essays on the Intersection of Music and Architecture (2007). In 1985 she/they returned to the States to take care of her parents. Miriam was named International Woman of the Year (1992 & 1997) by the International Biographical Centre in Cambridge, England for her distinguished service to music. As founder of the International Women Composers Library (www.iwclib.org) she is Creative Director of annual international festivals which have been crossroads for networking among women composers and their advocates. Her CD Hidden Treasures: 300 Years of Organ Music by Women Composers was recorded in 1998 in Princeton University Chapel where she sang alto in the Princeton Chapel Choir, and her book For the Birds: Women Composers' Music History Speller was published in 2005 by lulu.com. She enjoys playing chamber music as a member of the Alachua Consort, and is currently planning the 14th International Festival of Women Composers, March 14-21, 2010.