About the Westchester Chorale

Performance of Bach’s Mass in B Minor, April 29, 2007, at Sommer Center for the Performing Arts, Concordia College, Bronxville, NY

The Chorale presents two music events each season, its two  concerts in December and May. Recent performances have included

• Britten’s Ceremony of Carols,
• Lauridsen’s Lux Aeterna,
• Rutter’s Mass of the Children and
• a joyful concert of Barnett’s A Bluegrass Mass paired with Chilcott’s A Little Jazz Mass.             

This season marks the beginning of our ninth year as the official chorus-in-residence at the Larchmont Avenue Church. The Chorale rehearses weekly on Tuesday evenings in Russell Hall, the church’s rehearsal space.

If you love music and are interested in joining the Chorale, send inquiry to WestchesterChorale@gmail.com.  We invite you to sing with us at our open rehearsals and then participate in a brief, “singer-friendly” audition with our Music Director.

About the Music Director

Douglas Kostner

Douglas Kostner has been a performing musician for over twenty five years. He has worked with adult (both amateur and professional) and children’s choirs, handbell choirs, small and large instrumental ensembles, and theater companies. He has conducted well over a hundred musical theater productions at such venues as the Westchester Broadway Theater, New York University’s Summer Musical Theater, and the New Federal Theater at the Henry Street Settlement. As a choral conductor, he has presented dozens of concerts of sacred and secular music with orchestral accompaniment.

As an organist, his many recitals in the New York area have included Trinity Church (Wall Street), Church of the Ascension (Fifth Ave.), Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Grace Church (White Plains, NY), Our Lady of Grace (Bronx, NY), Hitchcock Presbyterian Church (Scarsdale, NY), and Saint Stephen’s Church (Ridgefield, CT).

Mr. Kostner is an active composer and arranger. His church music is published by GIA (Chicago, IL  https://www.giamusic.com/store/search?elSearchTerm=douglas+kostner). His compositions and arrangements have been performed at various institutions in the New York City area including St. Joseph’s Seminary, the City University of New York, and the national meeting of the Boards of the Methodist Church.

He is currently Director of Music Ministry at the Larchmont Avenue Church (Larchmont, NY), where he directs the Chancel Choir, Children’s Choir, Bell Choir, and various instrumental ensembles. In 2009 he was named Music Director of the Westchester Chorale. He has a particular interest in exploring lesser-known repertoire and bringing to light neglected compositions that are worthy to be heard.

Mr. Kostner holds undergraduate and graduate degrees from Fordham University and Manhattan School of Music. He is a Fellow of Trinity College of Music, London, and an Associate of the American Guild of Organists. He is fluent in Italian and has a good working knowledge of Spanish, Portuguese, French, and Latin, and to a lesser degree, German, Russian, and Hebrew.

Read further about Douglas’s extensive contributions to the local musical scene in this article published November 2019 in Larchmont Living:
http://images.acswebnetworks.com/1/2661/LarchmontsMusicMan.pdf

Westchester Chorale Accompanist

A native of Japan, Sanae Miyazaki started studying piano at the age of four. In Japan, she received Piano Performance certifications from the Yamaha Music Foundation and PTNA (the Piano Teachers’ National Association of Japan.)

Since coming to the United States, she has studied organ at Concordia College-New York and Nyack College, and received her MM in organ performance at Manhattan School of Music. Ms. Miyazaki was a music coordinator at the Church of St. Bernard in White Plains, NY where she played the organ and the piano accompanying both English and Spanish masses. She was a music director at Ramapo Reformed Church in Mahwah, NJ and she currently serves as an organist and a music director at Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church in Hawthorne, NY. Ms. Miyazaki has performed solo organ recitals at venues including Calvary Baptist Church, Holy Trinity Roman Catholic Church as well as the Japanese American United Church , all in New York City.

Sanae is an active collaborating pianist and Basso Continuo player. She has worked with numerous chorus groups and ensemble productions, including the Nyack College Chorale, The Calvary Choir and the Jubilee Chorus. Those performance venues include The Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine, The Greater Allen A. M. E.  Cathedral of New York, The Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Holy Trinity (NYC) and the Westchester County Center. She is currently an accompanist for the Westchester Chorale and Westchester Children’s Chorus.

Ms. Miyazaki has been a member of the music faculty at Nyack College since 2012 and a member of The American Guild of Organists as well as that of Associated Music Teachers League. As an active educator, she has a piano studio at Sakura Nursery (Harrison, NY) and has been teaching numerous young students. She has volunteered for music therapy at nonprofit organizations both in Japan and in the United States.

Members of the Board:

Fran Snedeker, President
Joyce Duffy, Vice President
Penny Grossman, Secretary
Linda Gibbs, Treasurer
Saul Spangenberg
Rosanna Hansen
Margery Manber
Nancy Frieden