Thomas Colohan, Interim Music Director
Tom has served as interim music director for All Souls since the summer of 2008. Active as a conductor, teacher, and clinician on both the East and West Coasts, Colohan is also the artistic director of the National Master Chorale, a position he has held since helping to found the organization in 2009. He served for eight years as director of choral activities and professor of voice at Santa Clara (CA) University and for seven years as the music director of the Santa Clara Chorale. He has led choruses at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Concert Hall, Washington National Cathedral, Prague’s Rudolphinum Concert Hall, the Stephansdom in Vienna, and regularly at the noted Mission Santa Clara. In 2006, Colohan and his choirs were invited to tour with the Prague Radio Symphony as part of the Czech Republic’s annual Dvořák Festival. The Santa Clara University Chamber Singers, established by Colohan in 2002, have gained a reputation for excellence throughout Northern California and have received invitations to sing at the Stanford University Choral Invitational, the Pacific Design Center in Los Angeles, and many other venues. Colohan has also conducted the San Jose Symphony, Symphony Silicon Valley, the California Chamber Symphony, the Mission Chamber Orchestra, and members of the National Symphony Orchestra and the Richmond Symphony.
His teachers have included renowned choral musicians such as Robert Shaw, Dale Warland, Morten Lauridsen, Helmut Rilling, Donald McCullough, William Dehning, and Daniel Moe. A lyric baritone who maintains an active voice studio, Colohan has sung professionally on public television’s “Great Performances” series at the Kennedy Center with the Washington Opera Chorus. He has also served as a chorister in the Washington Bach Consort, the Master Chorale of Washington, and the San Francisco Symphony Chorus. Previously, Colohan served for six years as founder and artistic director of the critically acclaimed James River Singers in Richmond, VA, and for two years as assistant conductor of the Master Chorale of Washington. He holds a Master of Music in Choral Music from the University of Southern California and a Bachelor of Music in Voice Performance from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music.
Lenard Starks, Director, Jubilee Singers
Lenard began directing the All Souls Jubilee Singers in January, 1996. At California State University in Sacramento, he majored in mathematics and minored in music, while serving as first clarinetist with several of the university's performing groups. He later served as Bandmaster while on active military duty in the U.S. Army Security Agency. For 11 years, Lenard sang with the 80-member Maryland Choral Society. He has participated in the planning and performance of several African-American choral music programs in the Washington area, and currently also directs choirs at Nottingham-Myers United Methodist Church in Upper Marlboro and the Heritage Signature Chorale in Washington.
Scot Hanna-Weir, Interim Choir Director and Pianist
Scot is in his first year of studies pursuing a Doctor of Musical Arts in choral conducting at the University of Maryland, College Park where he is currently the director of the University of Maryland Women's Chorus. Scot arrives at All Souls following four years of teaching Vocal Music for Tecumseh Public Schools in Tecumseh, Michigan, where he led six curricular ensembles and an extra-curricular men's a cappella group. He also served as the director of the Tecumseh Community Chorus and appeared regularly as a Music Director and Conductor for various theatrical productions with the Tecumseh Youth Theather, the Ann Arbor Civic Theater and Destination Theater in Canton, MI. Scot holds a BM in Music Education from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and a MM in Choral Conducting from the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
Angela Powell-Walker
Angela has served as the All Souls Choir Soprano Soloist since 2002. She received her Bachelor's degree from Oberlin Conservatory and her Master's degree from the University of Maryland. Ms. Powell has appeared in numerous operatic roles and performed with leading orchestras. Her repertoire includes music by classicists such as Bach, Brahms, Handel, Fauré, Mozart, and Verdi. She has also won numerous competitions, including the Metropolitan Opera National Council Audition and the Paul Robeson Competition.
Angela has toured extensively throughout the United States and Europe, including performances of the Fauré Requiem with the Master Chorale of Washington and the Prague Symphony Orchestra. She has appeared as Le Contessa in Le Nozze di Figaro, Rosalinda in Die Fledermaus, Micaela in Carmen, Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni and the title role in Carlisle Floyd's Susanna. Her varied repertoire includes such unusual opera roles as Mother Earth in Hailstorks's Paul Lawrence Dunbar: Common Ground, Madame Euterpova in Menotti's Help, Help the Globolinks, and Marfa in Rimsky-Korsakov's Tzar's Bride. Ms. Powell is a featured soloist at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Smithsonian Institution Gershwin Centennial Concert, and throughout the Metropolitan Washington, DC area. Ms. Powell has received performance awards from the Metropolitan National Council Auditions, Houston Grand Opera Competition, National Symphony Orchestra Young Artist Competition, National Association of Arts and Letters Vocal Competition, and the Maryland State Arts Council's highest grant awarded to an individual artist. Recordings include Christmas with the Master Chorale of Washington and Holocaust Cantata with the Master Chorale Chamber Singers.
Steve Combs
Steve is the All Souls Choir baritone soloist. He made his Metropolitan Opera debut under the baton of James Levine in the world premiere of John Corigliano's The Ghosts of Versailles, which was televised on PBS. He appeared with the Opera Theatre of St. Louis in the title role of Colin Graham's first staging of Britten's Billy Budd and as Demetrius in Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream. He was soloist in Saint-Saëns Oratorio de Noel and Mendelssohn's Von Himmel Hoch with Cathedral Choral Society, and featured in the world premiere of Donald McCullough's highly acclaimed Holocaust Cantata and subsequent recording. A graduate of the University of Delaware with a Bachelor of Music degree and a Master of Music degree from the University of Minnesota, Mr. Combs has won the National Association of Teachers of Singing Competition, a Licia Albanese-Puccini Foundation study grant, a Sullivan Award, and is a Metropolitan Opera National Council Audition winner. He has made solo appearances in Vaughan Williams' Mystical Songs with the Master Chorale Chamber Singers, in Monteverdi's Vespers of 1610 at the Basilica of the Assumption in Baltimore, and with Washington Bach Consort.