Gary Lamprecht grew up in Long Beach California. He attended Long Beach City College, Cal State University, Long Beach. He received his teaching credential through Cal Poly State University in San Luis Obispo.

Gary Lamprecht was a public school teacher for 34 years. He taught 7th through 12th grade choral music on the Central Coast at Laguna Middle School, Morro Bay and San Luis Obispo High School.

Gary Lamprecht has sponsored and presented the annual Central Coast Choral Festival for Middle and High School Choirs for 39 years. In recent years as man as 75 choirs have attended the two day Festival.

In 1985, Mr. Lamprecht had the distinction of receiving the first “Teacher of the Year” award for San Luis Obispo and Coastal Unified School District.

Education
Whittier College, Bachelor of Arts
University of Southern California, Master of Arts
University of Southern California, Doctor of Music in Conducting
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Biography
William Hall, D.M.A., was the Founding Dean and Artistic Director for the Center for the Arts at Chapman University, a professor of music at Chapman since 1963 and the first distinguished professor to hold the Bertea Family Endowed Chair in Music.

Hall taught at major conservatories of music around the world, and has numerous compositions and arrangements on the market including his own choral series with National Music Publishers. His professional organization, the William Hall Chorale was under contract to Columbia Artists Management for over thirty years and sang throughout the U.S. and abroad.

After Sheldon Disrud relocated from his native midwest to Southern California, he began to pursue a career in music — a marked departure from his original goal of becoming a doctor. Having formed a vocal sextet at L.A. City College, Disrud was contacted by an agent whose client, a singer, was looking for backup singers. The singer was Mel Torme, and Disrud and his friends became “The Mel-Tones.” As a performer, Disrud routinely rubbed elbows with the likes of Les Baxter, Marilyn Horne, Paul Whiteman and the future Mrs. Henry Mancini. After attending USC from 1946-’51, Disrud flirted with the show-biz life, but ultimately went directly from show business to a teaching job at Anaheim High School.

Disrud was brought to FC in the mid-1960s to teach and conduct choir madrigal, chamber singers and the a capella choir. The school’s music building was brand new and the department boasted faculty like Sara McFerrin, Dorothy Griffin and Nelson Bonar. While teaching at Fullerton College, Disrud also assisted Dr. Charles Hirt, one of his teachers from USC and his mentor, in running Disneyland’s annual Candlelight Procession at Christmastime, which Hirt started in 1957 and Disrud directed and ran from 1980 to 1990. Though now primarily retired, Disrud conducts church choirs and retirees in Orange County.

Carole Glenn believes that music is an amazing force which can create connections between people and lift them to the heights. She made this discovery at an early age, singing in sacred services and around the campfire at Scout camp. Throughout the years, the love of music and the understanding of its power have guided Carole to devote her life to its creation.

Carole is a Certified Music Practitioner (CMP) employed by Franciscan Hospice of Tacoma, WA, and Hospice of Kitsap County, Silverdale, WA. Carole brings music to the bedside of those who are ill, birthing, or transitioning. The use of therapeutic music adds beauty and comfort to these life situations. As a CMP, Carole is a graduate of the Music for Healing and Transition Program (www.mhtp.org.)

Polly Vasché was Choir Director at Thomas Downey High School in Modesto from 1975 to 2004. During that time the Knightengales and other Downey ensembles appeared on numerous occasions in both concert and interest sessions at ACDA and CMEA conventions. The Downey Choirs travelled widely and hosted a Men’s and Women’s Ensemble Festival for sixteen years. For ten years, Polly also conducted the Chancel Choir at Centenary United Methodist Church in Modesto and was active in the Choral Conductors Guild (CCG).

After graduating from Coronado High School in 1960, Polly earned a Bachelor of Arts Degree in History and a Master of Arts Degree in Education from Stanford University. After working for several years, Polly entered California State University Stanislaus to study music at the age of thirty. She majored in Piano and Vocal Peformance, earning a Bachelor of Arts and a teaching credential in 1975. Gary Unruh was her vocal/choral teacher and mentor at CSUS and later as well. During a sabbatical leave from Downey in 1989-90, Polly studied one semester at Westminster Choir College in Princeton with Joseph Flummerfelt, and one semester at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles with Paul Salamunovich.

The 2008 Howard Swan Award honoree, Charlene Archibeque, is a Professor Emeritus from San Jose State University who recently retired after directing the Choral Music program there for 35 years. Her retirement celebration was a wonderful testimony to her years of influence upon singers and choral conductors as hundreds of her former students joined together to perform for her one last time for an audience of a thousand. In addition to San Jose State, she taught for thirteen years in San Diego at all levels of public school music and taught the first experimental program in team-teaching at the junior high level.

While at San Jose State, she built a strong choral studies program. Conducting the Concert Choir and Choraliers in hundreds of concerts during her tenure, her choirs performed at 25 regional, divisional, state, and national Conventions for ACDA and MENC. The Choraliers recorded seven professional compact discs; and if you don’t have them, you should get them as they are wonderful resources of literature and beautiful singing.

R. Daniel Earl retired from public school teaching after 39 years, the final 28 years at Santa Rosa High School.

While at Santa Rosa High, his choirs gained statewide and national honors, including invitations for six of his choirs to sing for divisional and one for the national American Choral Directors Association Conventions. Most recently his Chamber Singers performed at the 1999 National Convention of ACDA.
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His choirs were also winners of several awards, including multiple winners at the Concord Pavilion and the Golden State Choral Competitions, with both his Concert Choir and his Chamber Singers having been First Place winners numerous times.

All of his choirs consistently earned unanimous Superiors at CMEA State Festivals. The choral program at Santa Rosa High School consisted of Men’s A Cappella, Women’s A Cappella, Men’s Ensemble, Women’s Ensemble, Las Choralistas, Concert Choir, and Chamber Singers. Mr. Earl has served as Repertoire & Standards (R&S) Chair for both.

Linda Allen Anderson earned B.S. and M.S. degrees in music education at the University of Illinois, where she was elected to membership in both Mu Phi Epsilon and Pi Kappa Lambda. She completed further graduate work at various universities and studied with prominent choral authorities, including Howard Swan, Harold Decker, Eric Ericson, and Robert Shaw.

Mrs. Anderson taught high school in Illinois and New Jersey for six years before moving to California. Employed in the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District from 1962-92, she served as chairman of the Santa Monica High School Music Department and also taught for twenty-one years at John Adams Junior High School, where she developed a comprehensive choral program of six sequentially organized choirs. From 1989-1995 she taught courses in vocal pedagogy and choral curriculum/literature at UCLA. She also served on the faculties of Santa Monica College and California State University, Los Angeles. Singers under Mrs. Anderson’s direction were selected to perform for National, Western Division, and State Conventions of the American Choral Directors’ Association and for numerous CMEA, SCVA, CCG, and NATS conferences. 

Ginger Covert Colla, Director of Rainbow Arts Kindermusik, is a licensed Kindermusik Educator at the Maestro level who loves to share the magic of music, movement and literature with families in the greater Modesto area. Ginger currently teaches Kindermusik classes in four age-appropriate levels: Village, Our Time, Imagine That! and Kindermusik for the Young Child.

Ginger is a veteran music teacher having taught choral music, voice and humanities for more than 40 years. Degrees include a Bachelor of Music Education degree from University of Pacific Conservatory, a Master of Arts Degree in Choral Conducting from Occidental College and a Doctor of Musical Arts Degree in Choral Conducting from the University of Illinois. Dr. Colla has taught choral music, voice and humanities at all levels from preschool to university.