CONCORA Artistic Leadership
Chris Shepard
Artistic Director
Now in his tenth year as Artistic Director of the Connecticut Choral Artists (CONCORA), Chris Shepard also serves as Music Director of the Worcester Chorus in Massachusetts. In May 2024, Chris launched THE COMPLETE BACH, a 132-concert project to present live performances of all of J.S. Bach’s works for the first time ever in America. This monumental undertaking, under the auspices of Music Worcester, was inspired by Chris’s BACH2010 project, in which his Sydneian Bach Choir and Orchestra performed all of Bach’s choral cantatas in Sydney, Australia. THE COMPLETE BACH brings together local ensembles as well as internationally recognized performers such as pianists Jeremy Denk and Simone Dinnerstein, and Boston’s Handel & Haydn Society and Emmanuel Music.
His musical interests hardly stop in the eighteenth century, however. Chris has conducted much of the most prominent largescale choral-orchestral repertoire, including major works by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Rossini, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Fauré, Vaughan Williams, Britten, Poulenc, and Britten; a career highlight was the 2022 performance by the Worcester and Masterwork Choruses of Verdi’s Requiem at Carnegie Hall. He has also performed many works by contemporary composers and has premiered works by such composers as Ricky Ian Gordon, Gwyneth Walker, Martin Sedek, Robert Convery, Anna K Jacobs, and Amy Bernon. 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. 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. For a decade, Chris was conductor of the Masterwork Chorus in New Jersey, with whom he performed Handel’s Messiah annually at Carnegie Hall; he also led the Dessoff Choir in New York City from 2010 to 2016. Chris made his conducting debut with the New Haven Symphony in 2015.
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 regional and All-State 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 five-decade Bach cantata project, and he currently serves as Music Director of St John’s Episcopal Church in Stamford, Connecticut.
A pianist and keyboard continuist, Chris holds degrees from the Hartt School, 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 Mass in 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.
His musical interests hardly stop in the eighteenth century, however. Chris has conducted much of the most prominent largescale choral-orchestral repertoire, including major works by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Rossini, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Fauré, Vaughan Williams, Britten, Poulenc, and Britten; a career highlight was the 2022 performance by the Worcester and Masterwork Choruses of Verdi’s Requiem at Carnegie Hall. He has also performed many works by contemporary composers and has premiered works by such composers as Ricky Ian Gordon, Gwyneth Walker, Martin Sedek, Robert Convery, Anna K Jacobs, and Amy Bernon. 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. 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. For a decade, Chris was conductor of the Masterwork Chorus in New Jersey, with whom he performed Handel’s Messiah annually at Carnegie Hall; he also led the Dessoff Choir in New York City from 2010 to 2016. Chris made his conducting debut with the New Haven Symphony in 2015.
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 regional and All-State 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 five-decade Bach cantata project, and he currently serves as Music Director of St John’s Episcopal Church in Stamford, Connecticut.
A pianist and keyboard continuist, Chris holds degrees from the Hartt School, 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 Mass in 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.
Richard Coffey
Artistic Director Emeritus
Founder and Artistic Director Emeritus of CONCORA, Richard Coffey served the organization for forty years, concluding his tenure in 2014 with a performance of the Bach Mass in B Minor, selected for that occasion as a tribute to the composer whose works CONCORA has championed since its inception and to this very day.
Coffey came to the greater Hartford area in the fall of 1972, following master’s degree studies at Union Theological Seminary in New York, at which time he was appointed Organist and Music Director for South Church, New Britain, where, with the support of the staff and congregation, he was able to establish The Music Series of South Church in 1973, CONCORA (then known as The South Church Choral Society) in 1974, and The Main Street Singers children’s choir in 2003. In June of 2017 he completed forty-five years of service to South Church and has been named its Minister of Music Emeritus.
From 2005 through 2022 Coffey was Music Director for the Hartford Chorale, the area’s principal symphonic chorus, in close association with the Hartford Symphony and other orchestras throughout the region. At the time of his departure from the Chorale he was named the organization’s Music Director Emeritus.
For five seasons Coffey was chorus master of the Connecticut Opera Association whose duties included the choral preparation of a number of major opera productions. He has also served as adjunct faculty for the Hartt School and the University of Connecticut at Storrs.
After studies with organist Marie-Claire Alain in 1979, Coffey was awarded a premier prix d’orgue diploma from the Ecole Nationale de Music. In 1992 he was named Choral Director of the Year by the Connecticut Chapter of the American Choral Directors Association. In 2007 he was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Greater New Britain Arts Alliance and a Major Achievement Award by the Hartford Symphony Orchestra. He was the 2009 recipient of the Alfred Nash Patterson Lifetime Achievement Award, presented annually by Choral Arts New England to individuals who have made exceptional contributions to choral singing and its culture within New England.
Coffey came to the greater Hartford area in the fall of 1972, following master’s degree studies at Union Theological Seminary in New York, at which time he was appointed Organist and Music Director for South Church, New Britain, where, with the support of the staff and congregation, he was able to establish The Music Series of South Church in 1973, CONCORA (then known as The South Church Choral Society) in 1974, and The Main Street Singers children’s choir in 2003. In June of 2017 he completed forty-five years of service to South Church and has been named its Minister of Music Emeritus.
From 2005 through 2022 Coffey was Music Director for the Hartford Chorale, the area’s principal symphonic chorus, in close association with the Hartford Symphony and other orchestras throughout the region. At the time of his departure from the Chorale he was named the organization’s Music Director Emeritus.
For five seasons Coffey was chorus master of the Connecticut Opera Association whose duties included the choral preparation of a number of major opera productions. He has also served as adjunct faculty for the Hartt School and the University of Connecticut at Storrs.
After studies with organist Marie-Claire Alain in 1979, Coffey was awarded a premier prix d’orgue diploma from the Ecole Nationale de Music. In 1992 he was named Choral Director of the Year by the Connecticut Chapter of the American Choral Directors Association. In 2007 he was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Greater New Britain Arts Alliance and a Major Achievement Award by the Hartford Symphony Orchestra. He was the 2009 recipient of the Alfred Nash Patterson Lifetime Achievement Award, presented annually by Choral Arts New England to individuals who have made exceptional contributions to choral singing and its culture within New England.