Jane Ring Frank
Jane Ring Frank is pleased to be in her 16th year as Conductor of the Concord Women’s Chorus, a 60-voice ensemble based in Concord, Massachusetts. Concord Women’s Chorus prides itself on rehearsing and performing challenging, new music written especially for women.
Frank is also the Artistic Director and Founder of Boston Secession—one of Boston’s premiere professional choral ensembles. She began her conducting career on meeting her conducting mentor, Frank Pooler (then Director of Choral Activities) at California State University, Long Beach. His specialty was avant-garde music and unique programming.She then went on to graduate with degrees in accompanying and conducting. At CSULB, she became associate conductor of the 70-voice University Choir, staff pianist, lecturer, and musical director/conductor for the Department of Theatre Arts. She also worked as a repetiteur with professional opera companies in Los Angeles, including the Los Angeles music Center Opera and the Long Beach Opera Company. Other artistic mentors include Randall Behr (former conductor and music director of the Department of Vocal Arts, Juilliard Opera Center and former resident conductor, Los Angeles Music Center Opera), the late Michael Carson (conductor, Lake George Opera), and Menahem Pressler (Beaux Arts Trio).
Frank moved to Boston in 1991 to conduct at Harvard University and five years later founded Boston Secession. In addition to her aggressive conducting responsibilities, Frank is a Resident Scholar at the Women’s Studies Research Center at Brandeis University, and Director of Music at the First Congregational Church in Winchester. For a number of years, she also served as Conductor for E.C.S. Publishing Company’s professional recording choral ensemble, Philovox, as well as a 10-year faculty member at Emerson College.
Ring Frank has conducted and produced two CDs with Boston Secession. Afterlife: German Choral Meditations on Mortality features the works of Distler, Brahms, Bach, and Ruth Lomon. This debut disc received critical acclaim for its outstanding performance quality. Ring Frank and Boston Secession’s second CD, Surprised by Beauty: Minimalism in Choral Music, which features works by Lomon, Arvo Pärt, Gavin Bryars, and William Duckworth, was outstandingly reviewed by the New York Times, Gramophone, and American Record Guide, along with many other journals, magazines and blogs.