Spring Sings

About the Artists

DIANNE BERKUN MENAKER is the Founder & Artistic Director of the Grammy Award-winning Brooklyn Youth Chorus. Under her visionary leadership for 34 seasons, the Chorus has become one of the most highly regarded ensembles in the country, continually stretching the artistic boundaries for the youth chorus. Hailed by The New York Times as "a remarkable choral conductor," Ms. Berkun Menaker prepared the Chorus for its debut with the New York Philharmonic in John Adams's On the Transmigration of Souls, the recording for which the Chorus won a Grammy Award in 2005. She has prepared choruses for acclaimed conductors including Alan Gilbert, Marin Alsop, and Gustavo Dudamel, and has collaborated with an impressive range of organizations and artists including the Kronos Quartet, International Contemporary Ensemble, David Byrne, The National, Barbra Streisand, Arcade Fire, and Bon Iver. Ms. Berkun Menaker has also developed an active commissioning program, born out of a desire to showcase the Chorus's versatility, resulting in more than 140 original works and world premieres by contemporary composers, including Pulitzer Prize-winners Caroline Shaw, Tania León, and David Lang, as well as collaborations with Nico Muhly and Bryce Dessner. In May 2025, she notably conceived of and co-created Port(al), a landmark new, evening-length, site-specific choral theater work based on the history of the Brooklyn Navy Yard, which transformed the Agger Fish Building into an immersive experience. This followed her work on original choral/theater productions for the stage, including the inclusive, social justice-oriented Silent Voices series, which premiered Off-Broadway in 2019, and Black Mountain Songs. She is the creator of Cross-Choral Training®, a proven holistic and experiential approach to developing singers in a group setting encompassing functional voice training pedagogy and sequential music literacy. Cross-Choral Training® is now available as a digital course produced by Anthony Roth Costanzo. As a recognized choral clinician, she has presented workshops for organizations like the New York Philharmonic and The Weill Music Institute at Carnegie Hall, and was recognized by the American Academy of Teachers of Singing with their 2023 AATS Award for outstanding achievements in the field.

Rachel DeVore Fogarty (piano) is a collaborative pianist and composer. In addition to her work at Brooklyn Youth Chorus, she also serves as accompanist/assistant artistic director to the Young New Yorkers' Chorus Women's Ensemble. Ms. DeVore Fogarty has accompanied master classes for Shirlee Emmons, Sharon Sweet, Cliff Jackson, Bob Kline, Michael Cassara, Jen Waldman, and Merri Sugarman as well as serving as rehearsal pianist for the national tours of the musicals Elf and Anything Goes. Her choral works have been performed by ensembles in the U.S. and internationally, including VocalEssence, St. Olaf's College, Oklahoma State University, the University of Kentucky, Baylor University, Hollins University, and the ACDA National High School Women's Honor Choir. She received her M.M. in Composition and B.M. in Piano from Belmont University in Nashville, TN.

Stephanie Griffin is an innovative violist/composer based in New York City. She founded the Momenta Quartet, serves as the principal violist of the Princeton Symphony and is a member of Ensemble Ipse, the Argento Chamber Ensemble and Continuum. She has received composition fellowships from the Jerome Foundation, NYFA, and the Bronx Council on the Arts; enjoyed residencies at MacDowell, Willapa Bay AiR and the Instituto Sacatar; and holds a doctoral degree from The Juilliard School where she studied with Samuel Rhodes.

Dominic LaMorte is a bassist who works primarily in theatre, orchestral, folk, and contemporary music; he can be heard playing on and off Broadway, at beloved venues and halls across NYC, & touring the U.S. and abroad. National: Kimberly Akimbo, Oklahoma! (Associate Conductor). Festival: Next Festival for Emerging Artists, Edinburgh Fringe, Internationales Jazzfestival Bern. He is also a private instructor, recording artist, and an avid collector of books and records.

David Lancelle (piano) is a composer/lyricist and alum of NYU’s Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program. While at NYU, he studied under William Finn, Steven Lutvak, and Mel Marvin. His work has been performed in Chicago, Milwaukee, LA, and New York, and his musical, "The Glass Girl"—with book and lyrics by Marina Toft—was workshopped at NYU Tisch in 2018 and was a finalist in the New Voices Project with New Musicals Inc. & Disney Imagineering. In 2020 he was commissioned by Broward College to compose the music for a musical about America’s opioid crisis, entitled "A Deadly Deception" (Book & Lyrics by Mariah Reed). In Summer 2024, he and his collaborator, Patrick Thompson, presented a commissioned musical for Pink Umbrella Theater Company in Milwaukee entitled "Portraits". He is also an avid Tolkien fan, and has composed music for all the verse that appears throughout The Lord of the Rings. Listen at davidlancelle.bandcamp.com

Elizabeth Leddy is a pianist, collaborative artist and educator based in New York City. Elizabeth performs with a diverse range of singers and instrumentalists, opera companies, chamber music groups, choirs and choral festivals. She works with singers from the Metropolitan Opera, the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, and NYC performing arts schools. She also frequently plays in musicals and with middle and high school choirs and choral festivals. For over a decade, Elizabeth has maintained a private studio of over 30 students, who consistently receive highest honors at state and local competitions and festivals and have been admitted to performing arts high schools. She is currently Executive Director of Little Chopins, an in-home music lessons agency, and teaches for Prime Piano Studio and the Anahid Syourapian Piano School. Elizabeth was formerly Chair of the Piano Department and Associate Master Teacher at The Music Academy of North Carolina, where she joined the piano faculty in 2014. Elizabeth is also a Musikgarten-certified early childhood music instructor and has taught infant and toddler music classes and group keyboard classes in private studios and classrooms. Elizabeth has performed in in the Classical Music Festival in Eisenstadt, Austria, Chamber Musaic benefit concerts in North Carolina, the Liszt Bicentennial Keyboard Concert at Baylor University, the Texas All-State Choir Camp, multiple North Carolina All-County Choral Festivals, Danville Symphony and Fayetteville Symphony, as well as at North Carolina School of the Arts, Wake Forest University, University of North Carolina-Greensboro, and Baylor University. Born in Texas, Elizabeth received her Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance at Baylor University and Master of Music in Piano Performance from University of North Carolina-Greensboro. She lives in Manhattan with her adorable cat, Jack.

Aleeza Meir (piano) From the greenhouse of a homeschooled childhood through intensive personal mentoring from acclaimed artists including Malcolm Bilson and Steven Stucky, Aleeza Meir is accomplished on piano, organ and harpsichord. She began her career as a staff pianist at the Ithaca College School of Music at the age of 16. Besides all the major concert halls of NYC, she has performed nationally and internationally in a wide variety of venues and capacities ranging from continuo player to concerto soloist. She placed second in the International Piano Festival competition in Bechyně (CZ) and the Otto B. Schoepfle national organ competition (USA). She served as pianist for the Boys Choir of Harlem, and has been John Rutter’s go-to keyboardist in NYC since arriving in 2002, performing in more than 50 concerts at Carnegie Hall. She is faculty pianist for Middlebury Language Schools’ professional ‘German for Singers’ program and music director for historic Old First Reformed Church in Park Slope. As pianist for BYC’s Concert and Junior Ensembles she regularly performs premieres of works of today’s leading composers, and appears in festivals including MusicNOW, Ecstatic Music Festival, Bang on a Can, and numerous broadcasts on WQXR. Aleeza is also the founder and director of Baroquelyn, a Brooklyn-based baroque chamber orchestra that marries historic performance practice with a fresh, modern, and local take on well-loved old music. Please visit www.baroquelyn.com.

Clare Monfredo is a cellist from Seal Harbor, Maine, based in Brooklyn, where she recently completed a Doctorate of Musical Arts at the CUNY Graduate Center as a Graduate Center Fellow and teaches at Hunter College. Clare has performed worldwide as a soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral leader, appearing at festivals including Tanglewood, Lucerne, Aldeburgh, Chamber Music Northwest, the Piatigorsky International Cello Festival, and Music Academy of the West. A graduate of Yale University and the Shepherd School at Rice University, she was a Fulbright Scholar at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Leipzig. She is a co-founder of Downeast New Music, a contemporary music festival based on the coast of Maine. www.claremonfredo.com

Percussionist Riley Palmer (percussion) can be heard throughout the New York musical scene from contemporary music halls, to Broadway pits, to jazz clubs, and back again. He frequently performs at The DiMenna Center, Brooklyn Academy of Music, 54 Below, Lincoln Center, and the Green Room 42. As part of the contemporary music scene, Riley has performed with the Orchestra of the League of Composers, Talujon Percussion, and has worked with many of today’s leading composers including Michael Gordon, Nicole Lizeé, Steve Reich, and Julia Wolfe. As an active collaborator with theatre and dance, Riley has served as an accompanist with Paul Taylor, Martha Graham, and Alvin Ailey dance programs.

Based in New York City, Rita Wang has established herself as a multi-faceted musician. In 2018 Ms. Wang received the 5th prize at the XXI Johann Sebastian Bach Competition in Leipzig. Her performing career expands from early music to modern Jazz, and have led her to collaborate with artists of diverse context, including Jaap ter Linden, Cynthia Roberts, Michael Lynn, Wayne Shorter, Lee Hyla, Christian Wolff, Midori, Robert McDonald, the members of the Juilliard String Quartet, Cleveland Quartet, Bretano Quartet, A Far Cry, and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra.  Ms. Wang began the violin at age six and received her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from New England Conservatory, and her Doctor of Musical Arts degree from University of Michigan. Her teachers include Miriam Fried, Kim Kashkashian, and Aaron Berofsky.

Johnna Wu is a violinist and improviser active in North America, Europe, and Asia. Since making her solo debut performance with the Indianapolis Symphony at the age of eight, she has performed internationally and most recently at the Lucerne Festival, Toyama International Contemporary Music Festival in Japan, University Museum of Contemporary Art in Mexico City, the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Donaueschingen Musiktage, the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, Carnegie Hall, the Berlin Philharmonie, Paris Philharmonie, Guangzhou Opera House, and the Banff Centre in Canada.  She is the founder, artistic and executive director of the New York-based electroacoustic ensemble PinkNoise. In 2015, she was awarded the Fulbright scholarship to pursue research in Germany. She graduated from Columbia University with a Bachelor of Arts degrees in biology and music, with a concentration in pre-medical studies and later obtained a Master of Music degree in violin performance at The Juilliard School. She has a Doctor of Musical Arts from Graduate Center-CUNY. She serves on the violin faculty at CUNY-Staten Island and was a co-curator and faculty member at the Lucerne Festival in Switzerland from 2021-2024.

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