American
Chamber
Orchestra
2024-2025 SCHEDULE AT NORWALK CONCERT HALL
October 19, 2024 7:30pm
Premier Performance of Dr. Edward Thompson's "Impetus" for Crystal Singing Bowls
with Terry Eldh​
Pyotr Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6
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​​​February 22, 2025 7:30pm
With The Mendelssohn Choir of Connecticut
John Rutter's Requiem and Antonin Dvorak's Te Deum
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​15th Concerto Competition - Application Deadline January 31, 2025
March 7, 8 and 9, 2025
Watch for details​
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April 26, 2025 7:30pm
Edward Elgar's Cello Concerto
And More!​
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June 14, 2025 7:30pm
Our 2025 Concerto Competition Winners:
and more!​
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​Buy your tickets and make a donation to keep the music coming!
Season Opener October 19, 2024
Premiering Dr. edward Thompson's
"Impetus" for Crystal singing bowls
Pyotr I. Tchaikovsky's
Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Op.74-Pathetique
& more!
Tickets available at the door
Terri Eldh
Terry Eldh is a classical musician, sound alchemist and energy healer.
Terry always knew that music was powerful. As a classically trained singer, Terry’s career started first in opera, and then moved to Broadway. But she always sensed there was more.
After studying energy for several years, Terry heard about sound meditation and signed up for a training course. During the final sound meditation of the course, a strong feeling guided her to join the master sound healer’s spiritual retreat to Egypt. There, her life was irrevocably changed...
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INFO
CONDUCTOR
Christopher Hisey
Conductor Christopher James Hisey is the Music Director and Founder of the American Chamber Orchestra, Music Director and Founder of the Connecticut Philharmonic and Music Director of the Greater Connecticut Youth Orchestras.
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He has also served as the Music Director of the Civic Orchestra of New Haven, Connecticut Valley Chamber Orchestra, the Troupers Light Opera Company, and Perrysburg Symphony Chorale as well as the Associate Conductor of both the Perrysburg Symphony and the Bowling Green Philharmonia and Opera Theater Orchestras.
Maestro Hisey has been a frequent guest conductor of the Greater Bridgeport Symphony and has made appearances with the Ruse Philharmonic and Pleven Philharmonic in Bulgaria, and the St. Petersburg “Klassika” Symphony, formerly the Leningrad State Philharmonic, in St. Petersburg, Russia. He has conducted concerts throughout the United States, Europe, Mexico and China. In addition, Maestro Hisey has conducted concerts with such notable musicians as Sir James Galway, Tim Janis, Jackie Evancho, James Dunham, Chris Finckel and Deborah Wong.
A champion of new music Maestro Hisey frequently premieres new works. Emmy Award Winning composer Rex Cadwallader recently said of Maestro Hisey’s work, “He is an advocate for new music, and a caring and careful medium through whom my music has been brought gracefully and powerfully to life.”
A passionate and sought after music educator Maestro Hisey frequently appears as guest adjudicator and clinician at schools and festivals throughout the region.
His student orchestras have won top prizes in competition and have been invited to appear at Carnegie Hall, NAFME Eastern Music Festival and other festivals and concerts in the United States and abroad. He has served as Professor of Conducting, Orchestration and Music Director of the Orchestra at Manhattanville College and Professor of Conducting and Music Director of the Orchestra at Fairfield University. For the last 20 years he has served as Director of Orchestras and Chamber Music at Greens Farms Academy, in Westport, CT.
Maestro Hisey holds a Bachelor's degree in Viola Performance from the Eastman School of Music and Master’s Degree in Conducting from Bowling Green State Univeristy. He has been fortunate to study conducting with Emily Freeman Brown, David Effron, Gustav Meier, Donald Portnoy, and Donald Hunsberger.
Mr. Hisey lives in Monroe, CT, with his wife, Heather and their 4 children, Lauren, Alex, Grace and James.
SOLOISTS
Stephanie Gregory
A native of Mississippi, Stephanie Gregory made her debut as Magda in Puccini’s La Rondine with the Orchestra Giuseppe Verdi in Milan. She has sung the role of Tosca with Opera Theater of Connecticut, and the title role in Suor Angelica with the Mississippi Opera. She sang her first Mimi in La Bohème with Opera Ischia, a role she reprised with Mississippi Opera, and was featured in the roles of Micaëla in Missouri and South Carolina, as Musetta with the Opera Theater of Connecticut, and Violetta in South Carolina and with the New Opera Festival di Roma, in Rome Italy.
In 2004, she completed a concert tour of South America with the Yale Alumni Chorus as the soprano soloist in Rossini’s Stabat Mater. She made her debut in the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires with the Orquesta Filarmônica de Buenos Aires. Other cities included were Rio de Janeiro and Salvador da Bahia, Brazil; Santiago, Chile; and La Plata, Argentina.
Other operatic roles for the 2001 ‘American Jenny Lind’ include Lucia in The Rape of Lucretia, Nannetta in Falstaff, Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro, Adina in L’Elisir d’Amore, Ilia in Idomeneo and Konstanze in Die Entführung aus dem Serail. Opera engagements in 2008 and 2009 included Violetta in La Traviata, as well as reprising the title role of Suor Angelica for Opera Theater of Connecticut.
Her solo work includes Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Stravinsky’s Les Noces, Orff’s Carmina Burana, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Mozart’s Requiem and ‘Great’ Mass in C Minor, Samuel Adler’s Stars in the Dust, and Haydn’s Creation and Lord Nelson Mass.
Her first recording, Stars In The Dust, music by Meira Warsheaur, was recorded by the Slovak Radio Orchestra in Bratislava and was released by Albany Records.
Ms. Gregory received a master of music degree in opera performance as well as an artist’s diploma from Yale University. She also graduated from the University of Southern Mississippi with a bachelor of music education degree, specializing in piano and choral conducting.
