Martha Sargent – Director
Martha Sargent has directed the Utah Baroque Ensemble since its founding in 1987. She holds a BA in music education and a Master of Music (MM) in choral conducting from BYU. She performs as principal oboist with the Utah Valley Symphony and teaches oboe privately. Mrs. Sargent also directs the Christmas Chorus, a women’s choir that presents a Christmas concert each year featuring Benjamin Britten’s Ceremony of Carols.
Jerri Bearce – Accompanist
Jerri Bearce has accompanied the Utah Baroque Ensemble since 1994. She received her Bachelor of Music in organ performance from BYU in 1981. She holds a First Prize in Organ Performance from the Royal Flemish Conservatory of Music in Antwerp.
Christopher Bradford
Christopher Bradford (Tenor) first learned to sing as a boy soprano, soloing in Messiah with a community choir in Cairo, Egypt. He has sung with a variety of jazz groups and choirs, including the BYU Men’s Chorus. He and his wife Lucy were featured singers in the Utah Valley Symphony’s Young Artists series in 1995.ﾠHe recently appeared as Bill Sykes in the Scera theater’s production of Oliver! and enjoys a wide range of performing styles, as well as expanding his own vocal range. Christopher sang with the UBE from 1994-1997, moved out of state, then returned in 2005.
Diane Wilde
Diane Wildeﾠhas sung with the Utah Baroque Ensemble since its initial concert in the fall of 1987. It has been her great joy to be associated with this group as she has become fast friends with many of the members over the years. It is very satisfying and challenging for her to sing the wonderful music that Martha has chosen over the years.ﾠ
Diane has a BA in Piano Pedagogy from BYU. She is the wife of Jeff Wilde,ﾠmother to 8 children, and grandmother to 7 (almost 8) grandchildren. She enjoys being involved in music at church and with the Grandview Elementary School choir. She loves feeding large groups (her family), cross stitching and crossword puzzles.
Douglas Bradford
Doug Bradford (Baritone) – wife: Christa. We live in Lindon, Utah, and have five children and 21 grandchildren. I retired from the U.S. Foreign Service at the end of 1998 and in the summer of 2000, we moved to Utah from Maryland, at which time my wife and I both joined the Utah Baroque Ensemble, after having been admirers of the choir for many years. I have sung in choirs most of my life, including community choirs in Cairo, Egypt, and Islamabad, Pakistan. My wife and I took a break in 2006 and 2007 to spend two years on an assignment in Amman, Jordan, after which I rejoined the choir. I find great satisfaction and enjoyment through singing the wonderful music the UBE performs, especially since choral works of J.S. Bach, my favorite composer, are a standard part of our repertoire. To help fill my time, I teach Arabic part-time at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah.
Elaine Craig
Elaine, an alto, has recently returned to the Baroque Ensemble after a long break. She sang from the beginning in 1987 to somewhere in 1991 when rehearsal times conflicted too badly with her daughter’s bedtime ritual. Elaine has a Bachelor’s Degree in English from Brigham Young University, with a minor in music. At BYU, Elaine sang in the former Oratorio Choir. During her university years, a friend invited her to come sing with a new group preparing Benjamin Britten’s Ceremony of Carols– she was an original member of the Christmas Chorus, which Martha Sargent also directs. Elaine also sang alto in Ron Staheli’s Canti Con Brio for the years that it was in existence. Elaine and her husband John have three children. Their two daughters came so slowly the conventional way that John and Elaine decided to import the third, but got him as a teenager to make up for lost time.
Their son got married in the summer of 2007 and the two girls continue at home. The household also features several pets. Elaine has enjoyed singing forever, maybe. Her mother tells her that, as a toddler, she climbed up on the lap of the visiting Robert Peterson (of Promised Valley fame) to sing her song to the singer. She also remembers caroling with neighbors as a child and realizing that all of the others had stopped singing, leaving Elaine and her little brother to carry on enthusiastically alone. She hopes that over the years she has added skill and some finesse to the volume and enthusiasm that were so early evident. She is thoroughly enjoying singing with the Utah Baroque Ensemble.
Emilee K. Knell
Emilee has sung with the choir since 1993. She has a BA in Music from Brigham Young University, and is currently pursuing an MA in Music Education from the same institution. She is a native of Provo, UT, and is married to Todd Knell. They have five children.
Harold Henderson
Harold started in music at 12 years old playing the cornet in the school band. He continued with the trumpet in high school and college participating in the Philharmonic Orchestra and Wind Symphony at Brigham Young University. He met his future wife in the orchestra for the BYU production of Fiddler On The Roof in 1972. Harold performed with the Utah Symphony Chorus for 5 years during the 1990s and joined the Utah Barogue Ensemble in 2005 as a second tenor.
Holly Harvey
Holly Harvey (Soprano) joined the UBE in 2000 when she stopped traipsing around country as a software trainer. She has loved singing since she was quite young, and her mother says that before Holly could talk, she would hum along in harmony to whatever was on the radio. Her personal rule about listening to Christmas music is that “if we are rehearsing it, I can listen to it at home” – so one might hear holiday strains as early as June or July at her house!
Jannette Sherman
Jannette Sherman joined the Utah Baroque Ensemble in 2009. During her years as a music major at BYU she sang with the BYU Concert Choir under the direction of Mack Wilberg and the University Singers under the direction of Ron Staheli. After graduating from BYU she spent a year directing the Marsh Valley High School and Middle School choirs in Arimo, Idaho. She is married to Lin Sherman, chair of the department of Spanish and Portuguese at BYU and is the mother of six busy musical children.
Jim Cannon
Wife: Ardyth. Six children, 16 grandchildren. Orson Pratt Professor of Mathematics at Brigham Young University. Plays the piano and organ because of a mother with a strong right arm and an iron will. Favorite music: Bach.
John Colton
John joined the UBE in Jan 2008 after having moved to Utah from Wisconsin in 2007. While in Wisconsin, he was a singer in (and on the board of directors of) the La Crosse Chamber Chorale, a group fairly similar to the UBE in terms of size, quality, and musical style. In addition to singing, Johnﾒs musical interests include trumpet and piano. He has also been a director, accompanist, and singer in various church choirs for the past 20 years or so.
John is currently a physics professor at Brigham Young University. Besides performing music, and doing physics stuff, John spends his time hanging out with his wife Pauline and two children, helping in the Sunday School at his local LDS church, playing table tennis, cheering for the Utah Jazz, and reviewing a cappella music for the “Recorded A cappella Review Board”, www.rarb.org.
John D. Lamb
John Lamb (baritone) joined the Ensemble in Spring 2008 as the group prepared for their European tour. He was born in Brockville, Ontario, Canada and came to the US in 1967 to study chemistry. He served a mission in Italy, went on to complete his chemistry PhD, and then worked for the US Department of Energy in Washington DC. He joined the BYU chemistry faculty in 1984 and now serves as Eliot A. Butler Professor in that department. He has also served as Executive Director of Research and as General Education Associate Dean at BYU. He sang with the Wasatch Chorale and subsequently with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir for almost 7 years under the batons of Craig Jessop and Mack Wilberg. John and his wife Betty live in Cedar Hills and have raised 6 sons.
Kathryn Bourgerie
Kathryn Bourgerie (soprano) was born in Minneapolis to a musical family and has been singing her whole life. She was introduced to choral tradition by her mother and father (a classically trained pianist), who were both members of various Minnesota-based choirs, including the Dale Warland Singers. A speech pathologist by profession , she has been involved with choirs most of her life. She received operatic voice training at Augsburg College in Minneapolis and was a member of the University of Minnesota concert choir as well as other Twin Cities based choirs. Kathryn has been singing with the Utah Baroque Ensemble since 1991 and has also sung wtih Martha Sargent’s Christmas Chorus in Provo.
Lucy Bradford
Lucy Bradford (Soprano) was introduced to music and performance at a young age. She performed in many school choirs and stage productions and made her classical solo debut at age 17, singing with Opera West. She studied at BYU on a vocal performance scholarship and sang with the Women’s Chorus. She started singing with the UBE in 1994 and took a break starting in 1997 for several years while out of state and beginning her family. She has taught voice lessons and participated in community theater, and returned to Utah and the Baroque Ensemble in 2005. Lucy and her husband Christopher have five boys and one girl, all of whom are learning to enjoy singing and performance.
Raelene Card
Raelene sang with UBE for 2 years before moving to Singapore for her husband’s work. While in Singapore, Raelene directed and wrote 2 major musical productions for the LDS church involving youth and adults from more than 20 different nationalities. She also directed the historic celebration show for Singapore American School’s 50th anniversary. After returning from Singapore, she rejoined the UBE.
Raelene has been happily married to David Card for 30 years and is the mother of 5 children with 5 grandchildren. She graduated from BYU in Special Education and has been involved in choirs and performing dance groups throughout her schooling.
Raelene has written music and is best known for her choral cantata on the life and second coming of Jesus Christ, “He Will Come”. Choirs in over 55 countries and numerous Christian denominations have downloaded and performed the cantata.
Raelene currently teaches voice and guitar lessons in her home and is working with Utah High schools in strengthening their arts programs through “Keys To Success”, a program supported by the governor of Utah.
Richard Adams
I’ve been in the ensemble for way over 10 years, with my wife, Patty. Trying to sing tenor has made me a more humble person. I have been the treasurer for over 8 years, and occasionally conduct the choir rehearsals in Martha’s absence. I also make copies of the Public Domain music we sing, and create the practice tapes, now CDs, for the choir members. Oh, and for some reason I usually sing-in with the auditioners, fight with the IRS, and used to setup and copy the concert programs. Other than that, I have been pretty inactive in choir business. I have been a programmer for more than 25 years, working at Eyring Research, Wordperfect, Novell, Corel, Viewsoft and Intuit. I am currently looking for work.
I have conducted and sung in Ward and Stake choirs for most of my life. My most recent success was helping organize a Stake Easter Concert in our Canyon View Stake for the last 4 years. I have a collection of reed organs (harmoniums) and 3 pipe organs: 4 rank 1MP unknown tracker, 3 1/2 rank 2MP Moller Artiste, and 8 rank 1MP Cassavant tracker. Read about the June 2007 acqusition of the Cassavant here.
Other interests include working on cars (the supercharged ’97 Camry is nice), singing Mariachi with authentic instruments, collecting an extensive guitar collection (the ’66 Gretsch Country Gentleman is nice), a wall-full of classical and choral CDs, bookcases full of church books and computer science books. My theme for last year was “Live in Fear” and for 2008 my theme is “Cling to the Wreckage!”. My New Year’s resolution is to have fewer “projects” by the end of the year than I have at the beginning.
Shauna Phelps
Shauna is married to Monte Phelps and lives in West Mountain, Utah. They are the parents of 6 children ranging in age from 24 to 12. They live on a 26-acre fruit farm and do mainly u-pick. Shauna has been singing in choirs since grade school. She was able to get plenty of small ensemble and solo experiences growing up in Northern California. She has enjoyed working with mainly children’s choirs, but has managed a few years of directing some adult choirs. She taught all of her 6 children piano before shipping them off to a teacher so they would have to answer to someone else other than mom. One of the highlights of her marriage was when her husband purchased her a grand piano. She’s currently trying to learn to play the violin with the New Horizon’s Orchestra and loving it.
Stephen Humphries
Stephen Humphries has sung in the Utah Baroque Ensemble since 1990. He was a mathematics student at the University of Wales, Bangor where he sang in a University choral group and in some mystery plays with William Mathias. Sang with a Columbia University choir for one year. Professor of mathematics at Brigham Young University since 1987. Married with two children. Loves to read and hike all year round.
Susan Abbott
Life wouldn’t be complete without singing in a choir! Previous choir experiences include BYU’s A Cappella choir (Ralph Woodward, director), the Princeton Glee Club, Westminster Choir College Summerfest (Joseph Flummerfelt, director), the Nashville Symphony Chorus (Dr. Sandra Willetts, director), and Christmas Chorus (Martha Sargent, director). Susan has sung with the Utah Baroque Ensemble since 1988. As well as singing in an adult choir, Susan has directed the SCERA Children’s Choir and the Provost Elementary Children’s Choir. For many years she had a piano studio, with Suzuki piano training completed at the Blair School of Music in Tennessee. She received her Kodaly Certification from BYU and currently teaches music at Provost Elementary School. Susan’s seven children and ten grandchildren enjoy the richness of music in their lives as well.
Teresa Kocherhans
(Alto/Soprano) Joining UBE in June of 2002, Teresa considers this one of the most challenging and rewarding musical experiences of her life. She married her favorite duet partner, Ed Kocherhans, in 1983, and they are the parents of 6 musical children. Being a wife and mother is her greatest joy and accomplishment.
Teresa began Classical Voice training at the age of 13, and studied 6 years with Debra Mitchell of BYU, and continued her studies with several other teachers throughout the years. She was privileged to work under the mentoring influence of Timpview High Schoolﾒs Paul Larson, performing with the Accapella Choir and competing in Local, Region, and State Solo and ensemble vocal competitions, receiving Superior marks. Having most of her experience as a Soprano through the years, singing Alto with the Baroque Ensemble has stretched and expanded her range and versatility. Teresa loves life, loves music, and LOVES singing with UBE! Thanks Martha!
Her musical experience and background also include playing flute, piccolo, & guitar; periodically teaching voice, flute, and guitar; singing with many church, community, and family choirs; and a wide range of solo and small ensemble performances throughout the western states. She has directed youth choirs, and has dedicated many, many hours of volunteer time teaching young women to play guitar, much of that with Raelene Card, her ﾓsoul sisterﾔ, who also sings with UBE.ﾠ
Besides music, she loves reading, riding horses with her husband & kids, learning about psychology & health, eating, traveling, art & photography, going to her native California beaches, & sports of all kinds. She is a lifelong member of the LDS church and a fan of BYU & the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
Tina Raisor
Tina Raisor (Soprano) joined Utah Baroque in the fall of 2005 and has enjoyed every minute. She has a BM in Choral Music Education from BYU. She taught piano lessons for several years. Currently, she is a full-time homemaker and mother of five great children. She is married to Tom Raisor. Her hobbies include reading, hiking, camping, dancing, and all things music.