Music at RHUMC
[Music at RHUMC] [Concerts at RHUMC] [Upcoming Concerts]
Under the direction of Director of Music Charles "Chuck" Dickerson, RHUMC offers Sunday morning music provided by the 4-part SATB Chancel Choir, accompanied by organist/pianist Ms. Althea Waites, and Sunday evening music provided by the 5-member Third Service Ensemble led by Ms. Patti MacLeod; in addition, RHUMC hosts community concerts, such as its Second Sundays at 2pm Series, and offers both Christmas and Holy Week concerts of classical works for SATB choir and orchestra.
Director of Music Charles "Chuck" Dickerson
Music is an important part of Rolling Hills United Methodist Church, and the church is exceptionally
fortunate to have a superb musical staff, choirs, and volunteers. The Chancel Choir, under Director of Music
Charles "Chuck" Dickerson, sings at both morning services. In addition to being Director of Music at
RHUMC, Chuck is the conductor of the Southeast Symphony, which celebrated its 60th anniversary with a
concert in Walt Disney Concert Hall on Sunday, July 20, 2008. And he is renowned as a tenor and was
chosen in the summer of 2007 to sing the National Anthem at Dodger Stadium on Methodists' Night. Read
about Maestro Dickerson on the Southeast Symphony website by clicking
here.
Organist and Concert Pianist Althea Waites
Organist and concert pianist Althea Waites, Professor of Piano at California State University, Long Beach,
performs the morning service's Preludes and Postludes, and accompanies the choirs, soloists, hymns, and
vocal ensembles, among her numerous other musical contributions. In addition to her acclaimed classical
piano CDs on the Cambria label, Althea was the featured piano soloist at the Southeast Symphony's 60th
anniversary celebration in Walt Disney Concert Hall. Read about Althea at her website:
www.AltheaWaites.com.
Third Service Ensemble Director Patti MacLeod
Patti has been directing and performing with the 3rd Service Music Ensemble for the past 5 years, and
prior to that, she had been active in RHUMC music with the Women of Grace ensemble, Chancel Choir, and summer music for children.
She received her Bachelor's degree from Texas Woman's University, majoring in voice and piano.
Following college, she performed in musical theater summer stock, travelled on the road with a rock
band, and played piano and sang in major hotels throughout the country. After moving to the Los Angeles area in 1979,
she obtained a California Teaching Credential and
began teaching music in Torrance, directing both elementary and high school choirs. A certified
Orff-Schulwerk specialist, she used the Orff method in her elementary music classes.
Third Service Ensemble
The casual "3rd Service Ensemble," on Sundays at 5:30 p.m., offers music in a variety of contemporary styles including blues, country, gospel, folk, pop, and Jazz.
3rd Service Ensemble
Top row: Michael Starr, Patti MacLeod, Jot Hollenbeck
Bottom row: Julie Greer, Paula Fong, Jack Sollecito
Chancel Choir at Sunday Morning Services
The musical offerings at the morning services include the Chancel Choir and soloists drawn from the Chancel Choir and the community.
Chancel Choir
Youth and Children's Choirs
The enthusiasm of the Youth and Children's Choirs are a welcome addition to the services.
Youth Choir
Children's Choir
We Keep It Fresh
We Keep It Fresh" came about a year or so after HeavenSent, when a couple of high-school boys felt
they should have a group too. Since there were only those two boys and maybe one other, it seemed that a co-ed group was a good solution
to meet the singing needs of those young men. "We Keep it Fresh" is open to all junior- and senior-high teenagers. There is no requirement
other than loving music. They sing 3 to 4 times a year.
Heaven Sent
"HeavenSent" is a vocal ensemble of high-school-aged girls. The ensemble ranges
from a quartet to 10 girls at any given time. To be a member, one must be able to sing
on pitch, as their angelic sound is one of the hallmarks that makes them so well loved.
HeavenSent sings 3 to 4 times a year.
Both youth ensembles are under the direction of Julie Greer with major assistance from Thyra Endicott.
Read more about distinguished musical staff at Rolling Hills United Methodist Church by clicking here.
[Music at RHUMC] [Concerts at RHUMC] [Upcoming Concerts]
CONCERTS at RHUMC
Rolling Hills United Methodist Church shares the gift of great music with the congregation and the community with a variety of concerts during the year.
- RHUMC hosts concerts by the Southeast Symphony, and the Chancel Choir and the Southeast Symphony combine for an annual Christmas and spring concerts.
- Main Concert Series - The RHUMC Concert Series Committee offers the congregation and the community major evening concerts fall and spring.
- Second Sundays At Two - RHUMC Music Director Chuck Dickerson serves as Artistic Advisor for the series of free afternoon 40-minute recitals and chamber music concerts on the second Sundays of the month from September through June, except December.
- The annual congregation "Thanksgiving Dinner" on the Saturday evening before Thanksgiving offers after-dinner musical entertainment, which in past years presented singers from Los Angeles Opera.
Upcoming concerts are listed below. See the concerts recently presented by clicking here.
[Music at RHUMC] [Concerts at RHUMC] [Upcoming Concerts]
THIS MONTH & UPCOMING CONCERTS
ROLLING HILLS UNITED METHODIST CHURCH
Sunday, September 12, 2010 – 2:00 p.m.
Second Sundays At Two
presents
PANTOUM TRIO
TEREZA STANISLAV violin
CÉCILIA TSAN cello
Lucinda Carver piano
Taking its enigmatic name Pantoum from the 2nd movement of the Ravel Trio, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra Assistant Concertmaster Tereza Stanislav, Long Beach Symphony Orchestra Principal Cellist Cécilia Tsan, and renowned conductor, pianist, and USC Professor Lucinda Carver, share their passion for chamber music with the audience. They'll perform Dvorák's beloved Dumky Trio.
Free Admission—Donations Appreciated
ROLLING HILLS UNITED METHODIST CHURCH
Sunday, October 10, 2010 – 2:00 p.m.
Second Sundays At Two
presents
HELIOS GUITAR QUARTET
ADAM PETTIT seven-string guitar
ALBERT DIAZ guitar
MICHAEL KUDIRKA soprano guitar
JACK CIMO guitar
In a monumental concert in USC's Alfred Newman Recital Hall, Helios Guitar Quartet performed Michael Kudirka's complete arrangements of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier
The Helios Guitar Quartet takes a new look at the potential for this now well-established instrumental ensemble. Grand Prize winners at the 2010 Pacific Guitar Competition, all four members are current or former students at the USC Thornton School of renowned guitarist William Kanengiser, founding member of the famed Los Angeles Guitar Guitar Quartet. The Helios Guitar Quartet extends the range of the ensemble by including two unusual guitars: one, a seven-string guitar allowing for extremely low bass notes, and also a soprano guitar, restrung so as to give notes in a higher register than guitars are usually capable of. This expanded range of pitch allows the Helios Guitar Quartet to embark on their current project, a performance of Johann Sebastian Bach's monumental work, "The Well-Tempered Clavier," originally for keyboard, but here arranged for Helios by quartet member Michael Kudirka. The ensemble is preparing this work for several concerts commemorating Bach's 325th birthday in the coming year.
Listen to Bach's Prelude & Fuge in C Major
Free Admission—Donations Appreciated
ROLLING HILLS UNITED METHODIST CHURCH
Friday, November 5, 2010 – 7:30 p.m.
Main Concert Series
presents
Violinist
CHAN HO YUN
and
Pianist
ALTHEA WAITES
Violinist Chan Ho Yun currently serves on the faculty of the California State University, Long Beach
and The Colburn School of Performing Arts. He has been awarded the DSCM, Sydney Conservatiorium of
Music, MM, Southern Methodist University, and DMA, University of Southern California. His violin studies
have been with Harry Curby, Alice Schoenfeld, Eduard Schmieder, and Abram Shtern.
Pianist Althea Waites has been acclaimed as a brilliant soloist, chamber musician, and
collaborative artist. In addition to performing on many of the world's prestigious concert stages, she has
also appeared in recital at major festivals such as Aspen, Tanglewood, the Yale Summer Festival, and
the Idyllwild Arts Festival. In 2008, Ms. Waites was the featured artist performing Gershwin's Rhapsody
in Blue in the Walt Disney Concert Hall with the Southeast Symphony on the occasion of its 60th
Anniversary Gala Celebration Concert.
Ms. Waites is a graduate of Xavier University of Louisiana and the Yale University School of Music. In addition to maintaining her concert schedule, Ms. Waites is currently on the keyboard faculty at California State University, Long Beach and is in demand for residencies and masterclasses at colleges and arts institutions throughout the country.
Donation: $20 / $10 children 12 and under
ROLLING HILLS UNITED METHODIST CHURCH
Sunday, November 14, 2010 – 2:00 p.m.
Second Sundays At Two
presents
JACQUELYNNE FONTAINE soprano
Loren Zachary Grand National and Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions Western Regional Finalist
In a recent review, soprano Jacquelynne Fontaine was hailed "elegantissima, piena di passione [full of passion]" for her portrayal of Donna Anna in Don Giovanni, in Viterbo, Italy. Miss Fontaine has recently performed with orchestras ranging from the Orchestra di Roma del Lazio to numerous symphony orchestras in Southern California. In August, she will perform Kathie in The Student Prince with the Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera. Among her operatic lead roles Miss Fontaine is found most performing Mozart heroines: Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro with the Rogue Opera in Oregon; Pamina in The Magic Flute, Donna Anna in Don Giovanni, both with the Tuscia Opera Festival in Viterbo, Italy; and Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni and Ilia in Idomeneo, with the USC Opera at the Thornton School of Music.
Recent awards include: Loren Zachary Grand National Finals (placing fifth with a prize of $6,000, she was the only Western representative to be in the top six), semi-finalist in the International Competitzione del' Opera in Dresden; Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions Western Regional Finalist; Rio Hondo Symphony "Young Artist of the Year"; and the National Association of Teachers of Singing, Los Angeles, "Singer of the Year." She recently competed her second year of doctoral studies at the USC Thornton School of Music.
Free Admission—Donations Appreciated
ROLLING HILLS UNITED METHODIST CHURCH
Sunday, January 16, 2011 – 2:00 p.m.
Second Sundays At Two
presents
TIM FAIN violin
"Tim Fain has everything he needs for a spectacular career. What brought the audience to its feet demanding three encores was his sheer youthful exuberance and dazzling technical skill." - Washington Post
A native of Santa Monica, New York-based violinist Tim Fain is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where he studied with Victor Danchenko, and The Juilliard School, where he studied with Robert Mann. He electrified audiences at his New York concerto debut at Alice Tully Hall with Gerard Schwarz and the New York Chamber Symphony, and at Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival with the Orchestra of St. Luke's. Performing works from Beethoven and Tchaikovsky to Richard Danielpour and Philip Glass, he has been soloist with the Mexico City and Oxford (UK) Symphonies, recently made his debut with the Baltimore Symphony with conductor Marin Alsop and with the Brooklyn Philharmonic, appeared as soloist with the Philip Glass Ensemble at Carnegie Hall in a concert version of Einstein on the Beach, made his Ravinia recital debut, and gave a special performance of the Beethoven Concerto at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia with the Curtis Symphony Orchestra. Last summer, Tim made his Walt Disney Concert Hall debut with the iPalpiti Chamber Orchestra under the baton of Maestro Eduard Schmieder.
Free Admission—Donations Appreciated
ROLLING HILLS UNITED METHODIST CHURCH
Sunday, February 13, 2011 – 2:00 p.m.
Second Sundays At Two
presents
Mayumi Kanagawa violin
Phillip Golub piano
Young prize-winning violinist Mayumi Kanagawa has performed as concerto soloist with the Palisades Symphony, New West Symphony, and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra
Japanese-born violinist Mayumi Kanagawa came to Los Angeles in 2007 to study with Robert Lipsett of the Colburn School. She is an EMMI music major at the Crossroads School in Santa Monica. Previously, she was a student in the Juilliard School's Pre-College Division. She won top prizes in the Connecticut International String Competition and Corpus Christi International Competition. Mayumi has appeared as a soloist with the Palisades Symphony, New West Symphony, and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra.
Young pianist and composer Phillip Golub studies both jazz and classical piano as an EMMI music
major of the Crossroads School. At the age of twelve, he won the Palisades Symphony Young Artists
Award and performed the Haydn Piano Concerto in D Major with the Palisades Symphony Orchestra.
He has performed chamber music with the Young Musician's Foundation (2007) and his fellow
Crossroads students (2008-10), both broadcast live on radio in the Sundays Live Series at Los Angeles
County Music of Art. In April of 2008, Phillip won the prestigious Spotlight Award presented by The
Music Center at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. More recently, he won the 2009 & 2010 ASCAP Young
Jazz Composers Award and the 2010 ASCAP Morton Gould Young Classical Composrs Award, to mention a few of his
numerous awards.
Free Admission—Donations Appreciated
ROLLING HILLS UNITED METHODIST CHURCH
Sunday, March 13, 2011 – 2:00 p.m.
Second Sundays At Two
presents
Classical Music Electric Guitar Ensemble
Los Angeles Electric 8
The Los Angeles Electric 8 is an electric guitar chamber octet of eight classically trained guitarists directing their training and musical curiosity towards the electric guitar, an instrument usually reserved for rock. They reclaim classical music for the electric guitar, revealing the instrument's enormous potential in the world of art music. The 8's founding principle is to showcase the variety of rich sounds made by electric guitars and vacuum-tube amplifiers. They draw from and adapt a variety of art music including organ works, string arrangements, wind ensembles, and Indonesian gamelan pieces. The members hold graduate degrees and doctorates in classical guitar from UCLA, CalArts, CSUN, Northwestern University, and California Polytechnic State University Pomona.
Free Admission—Donations Appreciated
ROLLING HILLS UNITED METHODIST CHURCH
Sunday, April 10, 2011 – 2:00 p.m.
Second Sundays At Two
presents
Maria Wietrzynska piano
Winner of the 58th Annual Young Artists Redlands Bowl Auditions, Azusa Pacific University's Concerto Competition, and the 2009 Beverly Hills Auditions
Fast-rising young Polish-born pianist Maria Wietrzynska is a top-prize winner in Southland piano competitions including Third Prize in the 2006 Los Angeles International Liszt Competition. She recently performed at the Redlands Bowl as winner in its 58th Annual Young Artists Auditions. As a winner of Beverly Hills Auditions, she performed a brilliant recital on the Manhattan Beach "Previews" series, which she subsequently recorded. Maria is pursuing an Artist Certificate at Azusa Pacific University under Roza Kostrzewska Yoder. She won the Azusa Pacific University's 2009 Concerto Competition and performed Chopin's Piano Concerto No.2 with the APU Chamber Orchestra. In early May 2010, she traveled to Uruguay and performed the concerto with the SODRE Symphony Orchestra in Montevideo.
Free Admission—Donations Appreciated
ROLLING HILLS UNITED METHODIST CHURCH
Sunday, May 8, 2011 – 2:00 p.m.
Second Sundays At Two
presents
Linda Wang violin
Concerto soloist with leading orchestras worldwide since her New York Philharmonic debut at age 9.
Since her solo debut with the New York Philharmonic under Zubin Mehta at the age of nine, Juilliard- and USC-trained violinist Linda Wang has performed concertos with leading orchestras throughout the United States. In Europe, she has been the guest soloist with Sir Georg Solti and the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival Orchestra, Salzburg Chamber Orchestra, Paris Sinfonietta, Germany's Sächsische Kammerphilharmonie Dresden and Philharmonisches Orchester des Vogtland, and The Czech Republic's Southern Bohemian Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra, with whom she toured. In Asia, her appearances have included an enthusiastically received debut in Taipei and performances in China and with the Philippines Philharmonic Orchestra. Linda Wang's solo concerts have taken her to New York City's Carnegie Hall, Amsterdam's Beurs van Berlage and the Berlin Schauspielhaus. Ms. Wang serves on the faculty of University of Denver's Lamont School of Music.
The repertoire for Linda's recital will complement the program she will perform the previous Friday in Manhattan Beach on Trinity Lutheran Church's Bach's Lunch series. For information, click here.
Free Admission—Donations Appreciated
ROLLING HILLS UNITED METHODIST CHURCH
Sunday, June 12, 2011 – 2:00 p.m.
Second Sundays At Two
presents
Ryan Reithmeier baritone
Heather Reithmeier soprano
Two young rising stars Heather and Ryan Reithmeier were among the winners of the Beverly Hills. Both are SongFest alumni and earned their Bachelor's degrees from Concordia College in Moorhead MN and their Master of Music degrees at CSUF. They have sung numerous opera roles with CSUF and regional opera companies.
Heather recently was awarded the title of the NATS L.A. Gwendolyn Roberts Young Artist of the Year. Earlier this year she made her debut in Segerstrom Hall as the soprano soloist for the Fauré Requiem with the Pacific Youth Symphony and Chorus. In 2009 Heather was the Grand Prize Winner in the annual Vocal Concerto Competition at CSUF, and was the First Place Winner in the Graduate Women Division of the NATS L.A. Collegiate Auditions.
Ryan also made his debut at the Segerstrom Hall as the baritone soloist for the Fauré Requiem. Also in 2010, he made his Pacific Symphony debut in CSUF's Meng Concert Hall as well as his Opera a la Carte tour debut in the role of Giuseppe in The Gondoliers.
Free Admission—Donations Appreciated
Please click here to view past concerts at RHUMC.