LEADERSHIP
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John Nettles
Artistic Director John Nettles, a native San Diegan, has been resident music director for City Ballet since 2006. He has worked throughout the country as a music director, composer, conductor, choreographer and clinician. In addition, Mr. Nettles has had a distinguished career as a singer/dancer/actor on both the classical and musical theatre stages. He has arranged orchestral works for City Ballet and Arkansas Symphony. As an advocate for arts education, he has been a teaching artist for City Ballet, San Diego Opera and is the Director of Vocal Music at Vista High School. He also owns and operates A Class Act Productions, which supplies both artistic and technical services to events, performing arts companies, and schools. |
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Rodney Girvin
Assistant Conductor & Accompanist Rodney Girvin is a classically trained pianist, organist, and private teacher. A San Diego native, he was a student of Ronald Morebello of the Kensington Trio. Under his tutelage, Rodney was the recipient of numerous awards and scholarships, including selection into the Music Teacher's Association of California (MTAC) Young Artist Guild and 2nd prize winner in the Senior Division of the Helen B. Goodwin Foundation Piano Competition. Upon graduating high school, he accepted a music scholarship to study piano performance at the University of Missouri with Dr. Raymond Herbert. Recent notable performances include the world premiere of the City Ballet of San Diego's "Four Pair," a contemporary ballet set to Debussey's Suite Bergamasque, at the historic downtown Spreckels Theatre and a solo recital at the La Jolla Aethenaeum Music and Arts Library. Rodney currently serves as the Facilities Coordinator for the 2017 San Diego Pipe Organ Encounter, as well as Board Member at Large for the San Diego Chapter of the American Guild of Organists. Rodney is also the resident organist at First Presbyterian Church of San Diego and he teaches a thriving studio of piano and organ students of all ages and abilities across San Diego County. |
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Liz Lindenfeld
President Liz Lindenfeld has been involved with music and choral singing for most of her life. In addition to PCC, she has sung with such choirs as The New York Choral Society, The Vancouver Bach Choir, The San Diego Master Chorale, and The California Contemporary Chorale. She is currently assistant music director of Vox Nobili, a five-voice a cappella madrigal and caroling ensemble in San Diego. She has performed with The San Diego Gilbert and Sullivan Society and Euterpe Opera Company in Los Angeles. Liz holds a master's degree in Voice Performance from California Institute of the Arts and a bachelor's degree in English from Brandeis University. She was the Executive Director at Manhattan Reading Institute in NY, a remedial reading and math school for disabled adults who were sent to us from government agencies to improve their basic skills in preparation for advanced education or gainful employment. The mom of three grown daughters, Liz served on PTA boards at their schools for many years, chaired the Governance Team at La Jolla High School, and was manager of two of her daughters' soccer teams. She also currently manages rentals for the condo in Maui she owns jointly with her husband, Michael. A native New Yorker, Liz has resided in San Diego since 1984. |
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Ruth Turner
Secretary Tess Nelson Treasurer & Communications, web team Tess Nelson is a third generation San Diegan and graduate of UCSD, with a major in biology and minor in English Literature. Her professional life has run the gamut from Research Associate at Scripps Clinic in La Jolla, to Realtor, to musician. Board service credits include Community Planning, Association of Realtors and San Diego Junior Theatre. Ever the chorister, in addition to Pacific Coast Chorale, Tess has been seen singing with Downtown Rotary’s ‘Club 33’ Singers and the Hunchback of Notre Dame Chorus with SACRA/PROFANA. She also serves in local music ministries, singing and playing guitar and piano. Tess is currently the Director of Music and Webmaster for St. Mary Magdalene Catholic Church in San Diego. Website: tessnelsonmusic.com |
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Mari Cox
Membership Chair & Librarian Mari Cox joined PCC in Jan. 2017 and joined the Board in March of 2019. Her choral singing began in 6th grade and continued through high school, in her church, and the Red Cross “Voluntunes” of Santa Barbara, California where she grew up. After four years of active duty service in the U.S. Air Force, where she worked in a small clinic and lived in Aldeburgh, Suffolk, England, the home of Benjamin Britten, and where she enjoyed concerts at his Snape Maltings, she returned to complete a B.A. and Teaching Credential at UCSB. Upon graduation, she was given a direct commission as an officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve allowing her to retire after completing 20 years of military service. After completing a Masters degree in Educational Administration, and being tenured in the San Diego Unified School District, she, her husband and young son returned to England for another two years. They returned to Santa Barbara and then settled in Del Mar. Mari loves to travel, read, foster puppies for Helen Woodward, and learn and perform challenging choral works. Her love of music is complemented by her love for genealogy. Mari is also on the Board of Directors of the San Dieguito Newcomers group. |
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Sharon Russakoff
Event Coordinator Sharon Russakoff has been a singer, a teacher and a librarian for over thirty years. Her background includes extensive research experience, information organization, budget management, outreach, grant writing, and musical and technical performance and support, in both bi-coastal and international venues. She has performed organizational and administrative functions in a major university, in middle-class and inner city public schools on two coasts, in prestigious private schools, public libraries, and a medical library in a major East Coast hospital, as well as conducting freelance research . Sharon has authored newsletters for several groups for over ten years, has coordinated volunteer groups and volunteered for the San Diego Symphony, the San Diego Opera, and numerous theaters. She also sews costumes for an iconic local theater. She is always looking for new ways to grow. |
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Lea Ann Walker
Historian Lea Ann Walker sang with the SD Master Chorale for 30 years, serving as Board President, Singers Council Chair, Singer Representative, Newsletter Editor, etc. She also founded and directed the group's Senior Outreach Program, and helped establish and led the Educational Outreach Program, both for many years. She has been a church and Army Officers' Wives group choir director off and on and around the world for the past 53 years, currently singing with the Pacific Beach United Methodist Church and helping with sectional choir rehearsals. Her studies include voice training at Phillips University in Enid, Oklahoma (her birth home), at Oklahoma State University, where she majored in Vocal Music, and at Chabot College, where she earned an associate arts degree in Journalism in 1980, while working full time at the Tri-Valley Herald daily newspaper in Livermore, California. Beginning in 1984, she edited a newsletter for the Military Family Resource Center, and as Board President of the Ft. Belvoir Officer's Wives Club in Virginia, helped establish the Education and Employment Resource Center, and worked with the Army Family Action Council at the Pentagon help to improve relations with military personnel agencies and family members. With husband Pat and adult children Chris and Melissa, she owns and helps operate their family business partnership, WalkerVision Interarts. She and Pat have been married for 55 years. |
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Patrick E. Walker
Media Pat Walker has sung with church, chapel, community and college choirs (where he earned a bachelor of science degree in Physics and spent four years in the Army ROTC). During his 20 years on active duty in the U.S. Army Artillery (including one year in Vietnam), he earned a master's degree in Nuclear Engineering and went to teach in the West Point physics department. While there, he earned a second master's Degree in Educational Guidance and Counseling. After retiring in 1984, he came to work here at Horizon Technology as a research scientist, and singing in the SD Master Chorale (ultimately with them for 29 years). He spent his GI Bill money to earn a third master's Degree in Education Technology. When Horizons closed its doors, he shifted to artistic endeavors and joined with his wife, Lea Ann, and adult children, operating WalkerVision Interarts (WVI), an audio-video production service partnership which has been specializing in the live recording of performing arts groups for the past 32 years. The business's primary client for 17 years was the San Diego Symphony, where their work was seen on screen at the Summer Pops and in the concert hall. WVI also records many performances for UCSD drama, music and dance departments, the Spreckels Organ Pavilion, choral groups, schools and churches. He is now active (for the first time in more than 50 years) in a local amateur radio club -- he shares his digital video editing suite with his new digital ham radio station. |
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Ann DePeyster
Board Member Ann had a violin as a small child and took lessons at the Kansas City Conservatory of Music. She also enjoyed singing in her high school choir in Wisconsin. Early exposure to music made a lasting impression that took a long hiatus but resurfaced later in life. Undergraduate education at Pomona College and graduate studies at U.C. Berkeley’s School of Public Health were devoted entirely to other non-musical pursuits. The next 29 years focused on San Diego State University’s new Graduate School of Public Health (GSPH) where she was among the founding faculty, developed and directed the Toxicology graduate program, and concurrently served as Director of the GSPH for six of those years. After leaving SDSU in 2012, one new goal became making music a bigger priority in her life. She joined the Chesapeake Chorale, a community choir in tidewater Virginia where she and husband Michael Kirk enjoy a second home when not at their main residence in La Jolla. She also took on maintaining their website, a skill she had to learn but also a responsibility she could reasonably fulfill while living at their main residence in La Jolla. She continues to co-manage the Chesapeake Chorale website and serves on their board of directors. She was thrilled to be introduced to the Pacific Coast Chorale a few years ago, thanks to Liz Lindenfeld. Having recently completed multiple terms on several other scientific and community volunteer boards and ceasing professional consulting activities, Ann will be offering more of her newly acquired free time to helping with various PCC board responsibilities. |
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Sue McConchie
Board Member |