Board of Directors

  Music has been my love since I was a boy. I began my formal studies in Woodstock, Vermont, and I received my Bachelor’s degree in Music in Keene, New Hampshire. 

While singing under inspirational choral instructors, I learned that a dynamic director makes choral music come alive. 

My first official conducting job was when I was 19 years old, for a UCC Church in Vermont. As Director of Music, I tripled their choir membership and expanded the choir’s role in worship. I was hooked!

Since then, I have directed many choirs of various sizes and origins, from Vermont to Florida and Hawaii, including being the founding director of a popular auditioned choir on Kauai for 9 years. I enjoy nurturing the talents and vocal abilities of a choir, expanding the possibilities and experiences for the singers and for audiences. 

Sing Out Kauai was founded in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. New times demand a new vision: smaller ensembles, higher levels of performance, and different ways to share our music. 

In my 40+ years of conducting, I have learned that choral music, when done well, is full of passion, expressing human emotion and experience. It can change a person’s life, and it can change the world.  

I am a concert pianist, producer, music director and teacher. 

I made my solo debut with the North Carolina Piedmont Triad Symphony Orchestra at the age of 10 as a result of winning 1st Prize in a concert competition. 

I have appeared as a soloist with orchestras in London, Hungary, New York and St. Petersburg in Russia under the baton of the late Sviatoslav Luther. 

Some of my most memorable music festival participations as a chamber musician and soloist took place around the world: Banff Chamber Music Festival; International Musicians Seminar (IMS) in Prussia Cove, England; Ecoles d’Art Americaines de Fontainebleau in France; Tel-Hai International Masterclasses in Israel; Leipzig International Music Festival; International Keyboard Institute Festival (IKIF); Beethoven Institute and Festival. 

My love for vocal and choir accompaniment began in 6th grade, when my choir director realized I could play anything on the piano. 

Two years later, I moved to New York City to study piano at Juilliard. In addition to a demanding schedule of solo concerts and competitions, I continued vocal and choir accompaniment on the side, throughout my undergraduate and graduate studies.

Today, I am a happy Kauai resident who can be found performing, working diligently with a select number of talented piano students, and teaching yoga. 

I am founder of the series A Night of Chamber Music with Ensemble Henrietta.

I am thrilled to be co-directing Sing Out Kauai with my friend and colleague Randy Leonard.

  I am a 5th generation florist originally from New York State. My mother sang and always had music playing, musicals on the record player or listening to her favorite radio station.

I started singing about the age of 8 in the Methodist church junior choir, eventually moving up to the senior choir as I became older.

My first voice coach was an opera singer. He encouraged me to audition for the part of Josephine in H.M.S. Pinafore. I got the part and loved being on stage and meeting other singers so much that I was going to sell the family flower business and try my luck on Broadway. 

On opening night, I received a call from Washington D.C. asking me if I would take a job as one of the florists at the White House. I accepted. I sold my business and moved to Virginia.

Once in Virginia, I joined a church choir and started voice lessons with Rudy Lewis, who had Roberta Flack as a student. I began to sing solos at weddings.

After living in Virginia for 24 years, my wonderful, supportive husband, Charlie, and I, moved to Kauai to be with my aging parents. I again joined the church choir and after retirement, auditioned for a local choral group and was accepted.

I am so very honored to be sharing talents with other singers through Sing Out Kauai. 

The best is yet to come!

   Some 40 years ago I was working as a medical technologist in a chemistry lab at UCLA medical center. It was then I made the decision to get out of the basement and see the world. 

I went back to school and received a Masters in Accounting. I moved my family to Switzerland and worked all over Europe. I settled on Kauai 32 years ago.

Although I am still a practicing CPA, my true loves are theater and music. 

I may have never cultivated either if it weren’t for my late wife Delia Valentin, who died in 2017. 

Delia was prominent in the Kauai theater scene and sang with Kauai Chamber Singers, led by Greg Shepherd. About 25 years ago, I happened to be singing next to Greg at a church service we attended while in England for the Shrewsbury music festival. Greg recruited me to join the choir.

My two most exciting and demanding acting roles have been George (Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf) and Judge Turpin (Sweeney Todd). I am currently on the board of directors of Kauai Community Players (KCP) and am actively involved in the recent launch of KCP TV. My short play, “A New Day,” was the first KCP TV production.

I remember how musically raw I was when I first started singing. The beauty of the choral experience is that regardless of our musical background and sophistication, we have the opportunity to grow. 

And there’s nothing like a group of people coming together for a shared objective, literally in harmony. 

  I have loved singing since I was a little girl growing up in Los Angeles, California. I’d make up tunes, adding words that may or may not have made sense, until my mother taught me real songs. 

From the moment I joined the school choir in third grade, I’ve found it enchanting to sing with others, to hear melodies and harmonies weaving together. When you’re singing, you can’t help but feel happy.

When I was 5 years old, I learned to play ukulele, and spent hours listening to my mom’s Warner Bros. record of movie stars singing holiday songs. My favorite was “Mele Kalikimaka,” which means “Merry Christmas” in Hawaiian. 

It wasn’t until I unexpectedly moved to Kauai in my 20s, that these Hawaiian connections began to make sense. More than 30 years later, I still love living on Kauai, enjoying all the Garden Island has to offer. 

When I'm not singing, I am an insurance agent, insuring many of our island’s businesses.

I’m also a writer, specializing in stories about people, and operate a small publishing company named Write Path Publishing.