Past concerts
Special thanks to all our supporters for their time and financial support. It is only through your continued support that we can engage, enrich, and inspire through the choral arts.
- Did you miss out on a performance? Do you want to relive your experience? Click on a concert link below.
Our Mission
Arizona Cantilena Chorale is an ensemble of skilled and experienced singers dedicated to performing choral music of exceptional beauty, variety, and depth. We explore a broad range of musical styles, bringing both familiar works and those of under-performed composers to audiences in lively, accessible performances. Through the power of music to connect and inspire, we seek to reveal the best in all of us and to lift us beyond the everyday.
Our Vision is to…
- Reveal the mysteries of the best choral music of all time for the modern audience in live performance
- Delight, move, and challenge our audiences, giving them a deep sense of fulfillment through engaging their hearts with expressed meaning and revealed beauty
- Represent the greater Phoenix area with excellence demonstrated in performances world-wide
- Absorb lessons from the artistry of the best choral minds from around to world to create a strikingly unique voice in the Greater Phoenix Area
- Collaborate with arts organizations in the Greater Phoenix Area to produce unique and surprising performances and exhibitions
- Establish a pivotal community that fosters and ingrains choral music in the mosaic of our multifaceted cultures
- Reward generosity through producing fulfilling, tangible and verifiable results for financial commitments and individual efforts
- Unlock the artistic potential and vision in talented people of all ages
- Foster both accomplished and aspiring musicians and spur them into creative, generative action
Artistic Directors
Dr. David Schildkret
Dr. David Schildkret recently retired as Director of Choral Activities at Arizona State University, where he now holds the title Professor Emeritus. Educated at Rutgers University and Indiana University, he taught at the University of Rochester (NY) and Centre College (KY) and was dean of the School of Music at Salem College (NC) before coming to Arizona in 2002. He conducts the choir at Dayspring United Methodist Church in Tempe and a summer choir in Bar Harbor Maine.
Dr. Robert Mills
Dr. Robert Mills is a Clinical Associate Professor of Music and the vocal coach/accompanist for Arizona State University’s Lyric Opera. He is a frequent guest artist with the Grammy Award-winning Phoenix Chorale and the Three Tenors of Mexico and is in high demand as a coach accompanist in the Phoenix metropolitan area. Dr. Mills concertizes throughout the United States as a collaborative pianist and has special affinity for contemporary American art song.
Board Members
KEITH LAWSON, Tenor
President
Email: president@azcanti.org
Keith has Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering. He is a founding member of the Chorale having joined at its inception in 2005 as Schola Cantorum. An Arizonan since 1977, Keith began singing with the Tempe Corona del Sol High School choir and found a love for choral music from age 16. He has been a tenor with the Dayspring United Methodist Church Chorale since 1996. His family shares his love for singing and his son, JD, and daughter, Katie, are also members of Cantilena. When he is not singing with the chorale he enjoys working as a contractor through his company, Embedded Software Services LLC.
KATIE LAWSON, Soprano
Secretary
Email: secretary@azconti.org
Katie is a second soprano and has been singing in choirs her entire life. She holds a BS in Supply Chain Management and a BA in Business Communication from Arizona State University. She works at Axon Enterprise as a Supply Chain Program Manager. In her free time, she enjoys traveling, making music, and spending time with friends and family!
NAN LAWSON
Treasurer
Email: treasurer@azcanti.org
Nan Lawson has served as Treasurer on the Board of AZ Cantilena Chorale since 2021. She has been a member of Dayspring United Methodist Church since 1986 and served on their finance team since 2012. She is also an alto with the Dayspring Chorale. An Arizona native, Nan holds a BAEd degree from the University of Arizona and a Certificate of Nonprofit Management from the ASU Lodestar Center of Philanthropy and Nonprofit Innovation. She retired from Motorola after a career in Supply Chain Management. She has also served on the Boards of Arizona Women’s Business Enterprise Council, East Valley Interfaith Project, and Arizona Interfaith Network. She is married to Keith Lawson, and stepmother to Katie Lawson and James Lawson.
ROBERT SMITH, TENOR
Business Development & Donor Management
Email: roberts@azcanti.org
Robert is from a family of singers in Indiana with a rich musical history ranging from his father who sang for Fred Waring in Carnegie Hall, to an uncle who sang Back Home Again in Indiana at the 1980 Indianapolis 500 Mile Race, to a brother and a sister who are professional jazz/rock ’n’ roll musicians. Robert graduated in Audiology and Speech Sciences from Purdue University where he was a soloist for the Purdue Glee Club and a professional group, Collegiate Singers, that traveled extensively in the Midwest. In Arizona, Robert has studied voice at Arizona State University, sang as a soloist at Trinity Cathedral, and is a tenor soloist for the Dayspring Chorale and Arizona Cantilena Chorale. He is a retired educator of 45 years. Robert and his wife, Pauline, have two grown sons and six beautiful grandchildren.
HELEN ROBLES, Alto
Board Member
Email: helenr@azcanti.org
Helen has been singing ever since she can remember. Her parents met in college and were both music majors. They all played guitars and sang harmony, and everywhere they went they had to sing for their supper! Helen studied music in college, sang in many choirs and vocal groups until she found Cantilena. Outside of music, she is a registered nurse and works in a local hospital as a lactation consultant.
Cantilena Chorale Members
Kenneth Brooks, Bass
Ken is a retired Professor Emeritus of Landscape Architecture and Urban Design at ASU with over 50 years of university teaching and administration experience, the last 22 here in Arizona. He has sung with school, church, and community choruses since he was in high school. He currently sings with the Dayspring Celebration Chorale and serves as the Music Director for Dayspring’s Men’s Fellowship. In retirement, his dog, Q.B., takes him for a walk every morning. He enjoys music, family, mentoring students and junior colleagues; and international travel with his wife.
Tehling Chiang, Alto
Tehling Chiang grew up in a musical family in Taiwan, where music became an important part of her life from an early age. After completing college in Taiwan, she came to the United States to pursue graduate studies in piano performance at the Eastman School of Music and the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. Her lifelong love of music continues through performing and teaching piano. Besides piano, Tehling’s favorite hobby is singing in a choir, through which she experiences the great joy of making beautiful music together with friends.
Cody Van Cleve, Bass
Cody began his musical journey in 2003 with the Tucson Arizona Boys Chorus, touring to Kazakhstan, the Czech Republic, Russia, and across the East and West coasts of the United States. He went on to pursue his passion for singing at Arizona State University, performing locally and internationally under the direction of Dr. David Schildkret with the ASU Barrett Choir. He is deeply grateful to continue singing alongside the multi-talented composers, vocalists, pianists, and performers of the Arizona Cantilena Chorale, and for the opportunity to create moments of magic and connection for audiences in a world that deserves so much more of both.
Susan Griffin, Soprano
Susan has performed regularly as a singer since childhood. As a student at Rutgers University, she was a member of the Kirkpatrick Chapel Choir and a founder of the Rutgers Women’s Chorale (later the Rutgers Queens Chorale). She has been a chorister in numerous Bar Harbor Opera productions as part of the Bar Harbor Music Festival and sang for several seasons in the ASU Choral Union. She is currently a member of the Dayspring Celebration Chorale at Dayspring United Methodist Church, Arizona Cantilena Chorale, and she has performed with the Chandler Opera Chorus. Susan is a nationally recognized dance teacher, having received the National High School Dance Teacher of the Year award from the National Dance Education Organization (NDEO). She has been similarly lauded by the Arizona chapter of NDEO and was named Teacher of the Year by the Phoenix Union High School District. She retired in May 2023 after 20 years of teaching dance at South Mountain High School in Phoenix. Susan and David Schildkret have been married since 1978, and they have two daughters, Elizabeth and Miriam.
James Lawson, Bass
James (JD) began singing with the Sun Valley Chorale under the direction of Glenn Bennett when he was in the ninth grade. He started singing at Dobson High School in the 11th grade and was accepted into the Arizona All-State choir in 2008 and 2009. In 2009, JD was awarded second chair in the All-State choir. He continued singing as a student at ASU as a member of the Men’s Chorus, Schola Cantorum and Solis Camerata. He first started singing with Cantilena as a student at Dobson and ASU and continues to enjoy performing with his father, Keith, also a member of Cantilena and the Dayspring Chorale. JD is also an instrumentalist and played cello for 8 years as a student. He and his wife, Sicily, are both native Arizonans.
Steve Negley, Bass
Steve studied piano and sang in choral groups and opera ensembles at University of Colorado, Boulder. He received his bachelor’s degree in music education from Western State College in Gunnison, Colorado, and his Master of Music degree from Arizona State University in piano performance and pedagogy. He has taught general music, choral music and orchestra in Arizona public schools for many years and has enjoyed singing in various ASU choral groups and church choirs.
Frankie O’Neill, Soprano
A lifelong lover of the performing and visual arts, Frankie is delighted to sing with the second soprano section of the Arizona Cantilena Chorale. She is a proud double devil, holding undergraduate degrees in Business and Art History as well as an MBA from Arizona State University. Frankie works in national marketing programs and operations for a homebuilder in the Valley. Outside of rehearsals and her day job, Frankie is an avid musical theater fan. When she isn’t in the audience or visiting local art galleries and museums, she loves traveling, discovering independent coffee shops, and catching live music around town.
Jamie Pirtle, Alto
Barbara Sorauf, Soprano
Barbara, a second soprano, has been involved in music her whole life. Mainly an instrumentalist, she played French Horn throughout her school years, later in pit orchestras for musicals, and in various community bands and orchestras. In more recent years she has gravitated more towards vocal music, singing in her church choir, and participating in groups such as the Berkshire Choral International, most recently performing in Berlin, Germany. Barbara is originally from Pennsylvania. She attended Penn State and has degrees in Special Education and Reading. She is retired from the Chandler School District. She is thrilled to be a part of this terrific chorale.
Valued Supporters
