Polymnia Choral Society
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Conductor, Murray Kidd is known for his expertise and innovation in the world of singing. As a conductor, Mr. Kidd was recently appointed Visiting Professor and the Director of Choirs at University of Massachusetts at Lowell. He is also Music Director of the Polymnia Choral Society in Melrose, MA. For UMASS, he recently collaborated with PBS when his University Choir joined Keith Lockhart and the Boston Pops in a DVD recording of Handel’s Messiah Rocks composed/arranged by Jason Howland. This DVD will premiere in August of 2009 on a national broadcast of PBS. Next year, the choirs will perform in the Boston leg of the tour of Handel’s Messiah Rocks in Boston’s Theatre District and will perform for the 125th anniversary of the Catholic Diocese of New Hampshire.
As a voice teacher, Mr. Kidd is known for his effective and direct vocal method and empathy. He is a proponent of the Bel Canto school of singing and has studied with Neil Semer, Brett Johnson and Carol Mastrodomenico. His studios at New England Conservatory School of Preparatory and Continuing Education, UMASS/Lowell, and a very active private studio, are bastions of vocal technique where singers come to perfect and heal their craft. His approach has helped students achieve prizes in NATS-Boston Song Festivals and other competitions around the country. Past and present students are currently involved with organizations such as the Handel and Haydn Society, State University of New York-TISH, Tanglewood Festival, Michigan University Musical Theatre Program, Cleveland Institute of Music, and many others. His students include professionals, amateurs and gifted high school singers in the Greater Boston Area.
As one of Boston’s leading authorities in art song repertoire, Mr. Kidd created the Song Recital Workshop, which is in its ninth year at New England Conservatory Summer School. The Workshop is devoted to the art song repertoire and focuses on musicianship, vocal technique, diction, music history, and poetry. Over the years, the class has performed over 200 songs by the great masters of artsong, including Beethoven, Schubert, and Schumann, and also commissioned a new song cycle by Boston composer, John Ferguson. Kidd has taught Song Literature at Eastern Nazarene College and Atlantic Union College over the past ten years, as well as Vocal Pedagogy and 20th Century Music History.
He has had a long association with Handel and Haydn Society and Boston Baroque performing with such conductors as Christopher Hogwood, Seiji Ozawa, Sir Roger Norrington, John Finney, Grant Llewellyn, Daniel Beckwith, Giselle Ben-Dor, and Martin Pearlman. Recently, he performed with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in a concert of Bach Cantatas where his role was the 'leader of the chorales.' He is conductor of the Chamber Singers, University Choir and the Choral Union at University of Massachusetts at Lowell. Mr. Kidd was a Conducting Fellow at the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival. He studied conducting with Dr. William Dehning at University of the Pacific and he completed his master’s degree at New England Conservatory where he studied Song Literature with Craig Smith, Nico Castel, and Martin Isepp, as well as Historic Performance Practice with Daniel Pinkham.
As a member of the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS)-Boston Chapter Board of Directors, Mr. Kidd is the chairman of the Regional Recital Series. This successful program is intended to provide the outstanding NATS-Boston voice teachers with a performance venue for their students.
An active singer, Murray Kidd has been soloist for many of Boston’s most distinguished organizations, including: the Handel and Haydn Society, Boston Baroque, Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra, North Shore Philharmonic, Musicians of the Old Post Road, Opera Boston, Chorus Pro Musica and many others. He has taken part in some of the world’s most prestigious festival’s including: BBC Proms, Tanglewood, Ravinia, All-Beethoven Festival, Edinburgh Festival, and the Casals Festival.
About the Accompanist
Dorothy Travis, accompanist, is active in the Greater Boston musical scene as a music director, accompanist, teacher and performer. She has an extensive background in musical theater direction having worked on dozens of productions over the last decade. With Theater II of Melrose, an adult community theater, she prepared the casts and conducted the orchestra for productions such as A Chorus Line, Into the Woods, West Side Story, Once on This Island, The Wiz and Evita. With the Stoneham Theater, she has music directed and played in Damn Yankees, Lizzy Borden and Tommy. In the summers, Dorothy is a music director at French Woods Festival for the Performing Arts in the Catskills of New York. Dorothy received her Bachelor of Music from the Crane School of Music at SUNY Potsdam and her Master of Music with a concentration in Piano Performance and Pedagogy from Northwestern University. She is a member of Massachusetts Music Teachers Association and has chaired the MTNA State Competition for Piano and Strings for the past three years. Dorothy maintains a private studio in Melrose.