Classics Remembrances
November 12, 2011

Martha Bein

Mendelssohn Chorale, director

Martha Bein, conductor of the Chorale since 1994, is a multi-faceted musician with extensive experience in conducting, vocal performance, musical theater, education, and church music. After earning degrees at Baldwin Wallace College (OH) and Cleveland State University, she continued post-graduate education with Fellowships at the Klingenstein Center at Teachers College, Columbia University (NY), Northwestern University School of Music, and the Conductors Institute of South Carolina.

Ms. Bein served as chorus master for Chicago Opera Theater, Lyric Opera Cleveland, and the Bel Canto Foundation, and as Music Director of the Shaker Symphony in Cleveland, OH. For eight years she conducted Rockford Lutheran Choral Union’s annual performances of Handel’s Messiah. Her teaching positions include Laurel School in Cleveland, where she also chaired the Arts Faculty; Lake Forest Academy (IL); and Keith Country Day School. Currently she directs the Music and Worship program at Rockford’s St. Mark Lutheran Church, where she has developed a high-quality music program engaging all ages in worship and outreach. In 2004, Ms. Bein received Mendelssohn Performing Arts Center’s “Starr of Excellence” award.

Greta Ball

Soprano

Soprano Greta Ball made her professional debut in 2009 to great acclaim as Miss Jessel in The Turn of the Screw under Maestro Lorin Maazel at the Castleton Festival in Virginia, prompting Anne Midgette of The Washington Post to proclaim that Ms.

Ball “offered some of the biggest and most climactic sounds of the night." Since her debut, Ms. Ball has also covered the role of Princess Lan in Tea: A Mirror of the Soul (Tan Dun conducting) at Opera Philadelphia. Ms. Ball has been featured as a Young Artist with the Santa Fe Opera, Chicago Opera Theater, and Opera Santa Barbara.

Ms. Ball performed as a soloist with the RSO in Carmina Burana in 2010. Her featured solo concert appearances include Berio’s Magnificat for Two Sopranos and Orchestra, and Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms with the North Shore Choral Society. Ms. Ball is the winner of the Joseph DiVenere Memorial Award from the Bel Canto Competition and the Annemarie Gerts Award from Musicians Club of Women, and has also been honored by the Meistersinger Competition in Graz, Austria, the Society of American Musicians, and the McDowell Foundation of Oak Park, Illinois.

Ms. Ball completed a Masters Degree in Vocal Performance at Chicago College of

Performing Arts at Roosevelt University, where her roles included Silberklang in TheImpresario, Yum-Yum in The Mikado, and the Countess in The Marriage of Figaro. A native of Oak Park, Illinois, she completed a Bachelor of Arts magna cum laude from Macalester College in Saint Paul, Minnesota.

Brad Liebl

Baritone

Dr. Brad Liebl has served as an Associate Professor of Classical Voice and former Coordinator of that division at University of Cape Town (South Africa) from 1998 to the present. In his 18 years in South Africa, he has become well-known throughout the Cape and other provinces as an interpreter of operatic leading roles, Lieder, and oratorio. In these capacities, he has graced the stages of Artscape (CAPAB), City Hall, the Baxter, Stellenbosch, Feather Market Square, Johannesburg Civic, Grahamstown, Bloemfontein, The Little Karoo, and the Northwestern Province. In Germany he has sung operetta and Lieder, and in the United States he continues to guest as a principal performer in oratorio and opera.

Dr. Liebl has had two new song cycles composed for and dedicated to him, and has created principal roles in the world premieres of five new operas, The Lost Dauphin, Amarantha, Valley Song, African Songbook, and Words from a Broken String. In 2009 he sang a principal role in the African premiere of Dead Man Walking, and in 2010 in the world premieres of African Songbook (an opera on the life of Nelson Mandela) and Songs from a Broken String (an opera about the African San people). His CDs include the recordings of Amarantha and songs of Rajna, Hely-Hutchinson and Chisholm (Songs for Ever and a Day with Aviva Pelham and Thomas Rajna).

He graduated summa cum laude from University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. In 2003, Dr. Liebl received a Distinguished Teacher Award from University of Cape Town.