Andrew Clark Director of Choral Activities & Senior Lecturer on Music
Andrew Clark is the Director of Choral Activities and Senior Lecturer on Music at Harvard University. He serves as the Music Director and Conductor of the Harvard-Radcliffe Collegium Musicum, the Harvard Glee Club, the Radcliffe Choral Society, the Harvard Summer Chorus, Cambridge Common Voices, and teaches courses in conducting, choral literature, and music and disability studies in the Department of Music.
Clark’s work with the Harvard Choral Program empowers individuals and communities through active engagement with choral music: fostering compassion, community-building, and joy. As an artist-educator devoted to advancing equity, justice, and access to the arts, Clark has developed community partnerships with youth music education programs, correctional institutions, health care facilities, overnight shelters, senior-care communities, and other service organizations operating beyond the normalized conventions of arts practice. Clark has organized Harvard residencies with distinguished conductors, composers, and ensembles, including Sweet Honey in the Rock, the Lorelei and Antioch ensembles, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Maria Guinand, Harry Christophers, Craig Hella Johnson, and Maasaki Suzuki, among others.
Since arriving at Harvard in 2010, Dr. Clark has led the Harvard Choruses in performances at the Kennedy Center, Boston Symphony Hall, New York’s Carnegie Hall and Metropolitan Museum of Art, and venues across the United States, Europe, Asia, and South America. His performances of choral-orchestral works with the Harvard Choruses have received critical acclaim, including Bach’s St. Matthew Passion and B-Minor Mass, Handel’s Messiah, Esther, and Israel in Egypt, the Mozart Requiem, Haydn’s Creation and Lord Nelson Mass, Beethoven’s Mass in C and Ninth Symphony, the Dvorak Stabat Mater, the All-Night Vigil of Rachmaninoff, the Poulenc Gloria, and Michael Tippett’s A Child of Our Time. He has also led the Harvard Choruses in presenting seminal 20th- and 21st-century works by Arthur Honegger, Lukas Foss, Ross Lee Finney, John Corigliano, Arvo Pärt, Tigran Mansurian, Jonathan Dove, David Lang, and Trevor Weston. Clark has commissioned and premiered over fifty compositions and recently launched the Harvard Choruses New Music Initiative, supporting the creative work of undergraduate composers.
His choirs have been hailed as “first rate” (Boston Globe), “cohesive and exciting” (Opera News), and “beautifully blended” (Providence Journal), achieving performances of “passion, conviction, adrenalin, [and] coherence” (Worcester Telegram). He has collaborated with the National Symphony, the Pittsburgh and New Haven Symphonies, the Boston Pops, the Handel and Haydn Society, the Rhode Island Philharmonic, the Boston Philharmonic, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, the Trinity Wall Street Choir, the Washington Chorus, Stephen Sondheim, Ben Folds, and the late Dave Brubeck, among others.
Prior to his appointment at Harvard, Clark was Artistic Director of the Providence Singers and served as Director of Choral Activities at Tufts University. Clark continues his work as a founding faculty member of the Notes from the Heart music program near Pittsburgh, a summer camp for children and young adults experiencing disabilities and chronic illness. He earned degrees from Wake Forest, Carnegie Mellon, and Boston Universities, studying with Ann Howard Jones, David Hoose, and the late Robert Page. He lives in Medford, MA, with his wife Amy Peters Clark, and their daughters, Amelia Grace and Eliza Jane.
Joe Turbessi Accompanist
Joe Turbessi is a versatile musician in the greater Boston area, maintaining a career as an opera conductor, collaborative pianist and vocal coach. His piano playing has been described as an “independent, probing musical voice” with “clear and expressive, singing tone.” He is the founder and co-artistic director of Opera Theater of Cape Cod, which debuted in 2018; as well as assistant conductor for Lowell House Opera, the accompanist for the choirs of the Boston Conservatory and the Radcliffe Choral Society of Harvard; and Music Director at Old South Union church in Weymouth, MA. Notable recent projects include Hansel and Gretel (Humper- dinck), Cosi fan tutte (Mozart), La Tragédie de Carmen (Brooks), Le Comte Ory (Rossini), Ariadne auf Naxos (Strauss), Requiem (Faure), Jesu, meine Freude (Bach), Macbeth and Requiem (Verdi), Amahl and the Night Visitors (Menotti), part I of Messiah (Handel), and several other projects. www.josephturbessi.com
Margaret Weckworth Resident Conductor & Administrative Manager for Choral Music
Margaret Weckworth is the Resident Conductor for the Radcliffe Choral Society and the Administrative Manager for Choral Music at Harvard University. She is also the Assistant Conductor for the Harvard-Radcliffe Chorus and the Harvard Summer Chorus. In Spring 2020 she served as the Teaching Fellow for Music 121 Choral Conducting. From 2014 to 2019, she was also the Teaching Fellow for the Radcliffe Choral Society, receiving consecutive certificates of teaching excellence from the Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning.
In addition to her work at Harvard, she formerly served as an Assistant Professor at Berklee College of Music where she taught conducting. Maintaining an active interest in non-profit and arts administration, Margaret is currently in her seventh year as the Music Program Administrator for Boston University’s Music at Marsh Chapel. Her responsibilities at Marsh Chapel span ensemble management, development, fundraising, and community engagement, while also singing regularly with the Marsh Chapel Choir. Margaret holds a B.M. in music education from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and an M.M. in choral conducting from Boston University.
Elizabeth Eschen Holden Voice Program Director & Teaching Fellow
Mezzo-soprano Elizabeth Eschen is a classical singer, voice teacher, and clinician living in Boston. Her singing career spans everything from new music (Lorelei Ensemble founding member) to opera (Boston Lyric Opera’s 2016 Carmen) to musical theatre (Ensemble in the 2016 Studio Cast Album of Hunchback of Notre Dame), and she finds herself now enjoying a career in choral music and solo oratorio. She regularly performs with Handel & Haydn Society, Boston Baroque, Emmanuel Music (soloist), and Bach Akademie Charlotte (soloist), and has made featured solo appearances with Rhode Island Civic Chorale (Messiah,) Cantata Singers (various,) Back Bay Chorale (Rachmaninoff All-Night Vigil,) Music at Marsh Chapel (notably, James Kallembach’s Most Sacred Body) Newburyport Choral Society (Beethoven Mass in C,) and the Quincy Choral Society (BWV 6.) Her love for early music and the music of Bach was cemented during her experiences with renowned Bach scholar/educator Helmuth Rilling in the Weimar Bach Academy (2016, 2017) and Christmas Oratorio in Schwäbisch-Gmünd (2017), and later at the Oregon Bach Festival (2018, 2019.)
As someone who has lived in both the choral and vocal performance worlds, Liz’s teaching is centered on bringing awareness and sustainability of vocal function to all singers. Her philosophy is based on the synthesis of fact-based, current vocal pedagogy with personal transformation. Singers should understand how the instrument functions, become comfortable with assessing and organizing their own voice, and connect to their individual gifts of artistry and emotion. Developing this healthy relationship with one’s voice takes time, practice, love, and appropriate repertoire; it is a worthwhile and important journey. Elizabeth works with students of all ages and meets them wherever they are on that journey. Her students have earned entrance into top voice programs and Honors choirs across the country, and perhaps more importantly, have been inspired to make singing an integral part of their lives.
At Harvard, Liz is the Director of the Holden Voice Program and works with Director of Choral Activities Andrew Clark on creating individual learning and performance opportunities that supplement and bolster the massed work of the Harvard Choruses. She also holds appointments as the Teaching Fellow/Vocal Coach for the Radcliffe Choral Society and Instructor for Skills for Singing. Liz is strongly motivated by equity issues in the field and serves at the Vice-President of NATS Boston, where she works to connect & galvanize the singer community. She holds degrees from Boston University (M.M., Conducting) and Providence College (B.A. Vocal Performance, English), and when not belting out Hamilton (or teaching others to do so) can usually be found hiking, swimming, golfing, or enjoying her nephew and new niece!
