Staff

Chris Shepard, Music Director

Music Director of The Masterwork Chorus, Chris Shepard also serves as Music Director of the Worcester Chorus in Worcester, Massachusetts, and CONCORA, Connecticut's oldest professional choir.  His choirs have collaborated with a number of orchestras, such as the Juilliard Orchestra, the Orquestra Sinfónica Nacional de Mexico and the Hartford Symphony Orchestra, in venues that include Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center and Radio City Music Hall in New York, as well as the Royal Festival Hall in London and the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City.

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Chris has prepared choirs for major international conductors, including Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Simone Young, Carlos Miguel Prieto and William Boughton, as well as for Broadway legend Patti Lupone and Ray Davies of the Kinks.  He made his Carnegie Hall debut in 2015, and made his conducting debut with the New Haven Symphony in 2016.

Chris returned to America in 2008 after a dozen years in Sydney, Australia, where he founded the Sydneian Bach Choir and Orchestra.  He led their BACH 2010, a project to perform all of Bach’s choral cantatas.  Under his direction, the ensemble performed over eighty cantatas, as well as the two Passions, B Minor Mass, and Christmas Oratorio; they completed the cantata cycle in 2013.  In addition to the music of J.S. Bach, Chris has conducted many staples of the choral-orchestral repertoire, and he has commissioned and premiered a number of new choral works in both Australia and America.  He also leads two of the longest-running annual Messiah performances in America, with the Worcester Chorus and at Carnegie Hall with the Masterwork Chorus.

A committed music educator, Chris has served on the faculty of the Taft School, Sydney Grammar School, Hotchkiss Summer Portals, and Holy Cross College.  He founded the Litchfield County Children’s Choir in 1990, and has conducted numerous middle and high school festival choirs in New England, New York and Australia.  He presented two documentaries with SBS-TV, an Australian national public television network, and has given several presentations at conferences for American Choral Directors Association and Australian National Kodàly Association.  Chris has been a guest conductor at Emmanuel Church in Boston, a church renowned for its four-decade Bach cantata project, and he currently serves as Music Director of St John’s Episcopal Church in Stamford, Connecticut.  He led the Dessoff Choir in New York City from 2010 to 2016.

A pianist and keyboard continuist, Chris holds degrees from the Hartt School and the Yale School of Music, where he studied choral conducting with Marguerite Brooks, and the University of Sydney.  He researched the performance history of Bach’s B Minor Massin New York City for his PhD in Musicology; his dissertation won the American Choral Directors Association’s 2012 Julius Herford Prize for outstanding doctoral thesis in choral music.


Dr. Martin Sedek – Incoming Music Director

Dr. Martin Sedek Dr. Martin Sedek Described as "a formidable new composer" by the Worcester Telegram, Polish-American composer and conductor Martin Sędek was born in Germany and raised in Poland and the United States. He is an award-winning voice in the world of choral and orchestral music, educated at Berklee College of Music in Boston (BM), Montclair State University (MM), and Rutgers University (PhD). Martin has studied composition with Tarik O'Regan, Robert Aldridge, and Matthew Harris, with additional studies with Steven Stucky, Chen Yi, and Steven Sametz; conducting with David Callahan and Julius Williams, with additional studies with William Weinert and Craig Hella Johnson.

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Martin is Composer-in-Residence at Harmonium Choral Society and is currently the Music Director and Conductor of Choral Art Society of NJ, and Artistic Director of the professional chamber choir Vocala Ensemble. Martin was a member of the choral and theory faculties at Montclair State University’s Cali School of Music from 2011-2020, and is currently chair of the music department and Director of Music at Keio Academy of New York. His music has been performed throughout the United States, Europe, and Africa and commissioned by professional ensembles around the US. Notable composition awards include the Yale Glee Club Emerging Composer Award (2015) and the Stephen Paulus Prize (2018). He is a regular visiting lecturer in the collegiate composition studio throughout the US and his works are published by Ovation Music & Hal Leonard. Recordings of his works can be found on the Albany and Ovation Music Media labels.


Carol Walker, Assistant Director/Accompanist

Carol Walker, Masterwork’s newly appointed Assistant Director, has been their regular accompanist since November of 2007. Carol enjoyed a busy career as a high school choral teacher for 32 years before retiring in 2008. She continues her active association with various high schools and related organizations in northern NJ, serving as accompanist, musical director and choral director. She has also been in demand as musical director for dozens of amateur and professional theater groups, including summer stock and dinner theaters in NJ, PA, NY, and CT. For many years she served as choir director and organist for churches in NJ and NY.

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Carol graduated summa cum laude from Montclair State University with a degree in music education, majoring in piano, voice, and harp. During her teaching career she was selected to conduct the All-North Jersey Region I High School Women’s Chorus, Junior Region I Treble Chorus, and the All-Sussex County and All-Morris County High School SATB Honors Choirs. Carol also served as accompanist for many NJ Region and All-State Choruses. She was the Choral Division Chairperson for the North Jersey School Music Association for 10 years, and for three years also served on the NJ All-State Choral Procedures Executive Board. In 2003 she was a recipient of the Passaic County Governor’s Award as Teacher of the Year.  Carol and her students toured Europe in the summers with American Music Abroad, for whom she worked as conductor and accompanist.

During the past 25 years, Carol has branched out from her classical training, pursuing folk music interests with her Appalachian mountain dulcimer and Celtic harp. To date, Carol has written and published 10 dulcimer instructional books, recorded five CDs, and produced one DVD with Homespun Music. As a dulcimer teacher and performer, Carol is in demand at annual music festivals all across the United States. She is also a three-time recipient of the Top Five Finalists Award at the National Mountain Dulcimer Championship held annually in Winfield, Kansas. She is founder and director of the New York Dulcimer Orchestra, based in the lower Hudson Valley.

www.MusicLadyCarol.com


Elizabeth Milliken, Consulting Managing Director

Elizabeth Milliken, Business Operations ManagerIn partnership with the Board of Trustees, Liz’s primary focus for the organization is the development, coordination, and execution of a comprehensive fundraising plan. She is also responsible for achieving established concert revenue and audience cultivation goals by directing the day to day marketing and promotional campaigns as well as front of house logistics for each concert.

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Liz brings over 12 years of management experience to the organization and is a Certified Level lll grant writer. Liz holds a B.A. in Behavioral and Social Sciences from the University of Maryland, College Park, and has completed the Executive Philanthropy and Resource Development Certificate program at Fairleigh Dickinson University.