John French, Associate Conductor
John French is the William F. Heefner Professor of Music at Ursinus College. He has been a member of the college faculty since 1979 where he teaches music history and conducts the College Choir and Meistersingers. He has received the Laughlin Professional Achievement Award and Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching from the college in recognition of his professional and scholarly accomplishments. Dr. French is the associate conductor of the Mendelssohn Club of Philadelphia. Active as a church musician for thirty-five years, he has been the organist-choirmaster for The Church of the Holy Trinity on Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia since 1992.
Dr. French has degrees from the Philadelphia College of the Performing Arts, Westminster Choir College and the College-Conservatory of Music of the University of Cincinnati. In addition to other grants and awards he has received two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Dr. French is President of the Board of Directors of the Musical Fund Society of Philadelphia. He has served in numerous offices for professional organizations and is past President of the Pennsylvania Collegiate Choral Association and the Pennsylvania Chapter of the American Choral Directors Association.
Donald St. Pierre, Composer-in-Residence
Mendelssohn Club’s composer-in-residence Donald St. Pierre has been on the faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music since 1990. He has served as principal keyboard player for the Milwaukee Symphony and was music director of the Skylight Music Theater in Milwaukee from 1978-1990, where he directed more than 50 productions and composed three chamber operas. He is one of the contributing composers to the AIDS Quilt Songbook. He has been head coach of the voice department at the Chautauqua Institution and has held the same post at the Bowdoin Summer Music Festival since 1995. As a recital accompanist, he has appeared at such venues as New York’s Lincoln Center, London’s Wigmore Hall and the Alameida Theatre, Paris’s Théatre du Chalet, as well as at the Tanglewood, Santa Fe Chamber Music, Bowdoin, Bard, and Grand Teton Music Festivals.