Rachelle Woolston
Pat is a long-time staff singer in the choir of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Indianapolis, where he has had the opportunity to perform many solo roles, including works by Bach, Vaughn Williams, Handel, Duruflé and Stanford. His musical training began at a young age in piano, flute and voice and he is currently a voice student of Jeff Ballard. His day job is as an environmental chemistry researcher at Corteva Agriscience.
Shederick Whipple
Rebecca Connolly is a writer of romantic and historical fiction as well as a lifelong lover of music. She sings in the car regularly, doing all the parts whether in her range or out of it. She loves singing in her church choir and is excited to be branching out more.
Pat Havens
Dr. Shederick Whipple, tenor, has sung throughout the United States, Europe and South America. Some roles Dr. Whipple has performed include Tamino in Die Zauberflöte (Mozart), Ferrando in Così fan Tutte (Mozart), and Rinuccio in Gianni Schicchi (Puccini). In concert, Dr. Whipple has been soloist in Requiem (Mozart), Messiah (Handel), and others. Some solo venues include Indianapolis Opera, Lexington Opera Theatre, Library of Fine Arts (Moscow, Russia), Teatro Sucre (Cuenca, Ecuador), and the Bratislava Orchestra (the Czech Republic). Dr. Whipple is the Senior Development Officer and Assistant Chorus Conductor of the Indianapolis Opera.
Christine Moon
Soprano Rachelle Woolston was born and raised in Houston, TX, and currently resides in Carmel. She holds a doctorate in voice from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. Rachelle enjoys singing with several local performing arts organizations, including the Indianapolis Opera, Indianapolis Symphony Pops, Indianapolls Chamber Orchestra, Kokomo Symphony, VOCE, Carmel Theatre Company, and various church choirs. She teaches voice at Ball State University and Lawrence Central High School and loves singing in recitals with her bassoonist husband, PJ.
Brianne Lindsay
If you think you’ve seen Chris somewhere before, you’re probably right! This Christmas season you can find Chris caroling with VOCE at the Carmel Christkindlmarkt and the Atheneum Foundation
Christkindlmarkt. She enjoys performing in choral ensembles in addition to VOCE, and in prior years, performed in the chorus of Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra (ICO) performance of “Fidelio”, and ICO’s Classical Christmas concert. She has been a section leader for the Messiah Sing Along for several years and finds that participating in this amazing collaborative event is the perfect way to prepare for Christmas.
Chris has her BS in Accounting from Trine University and is an accounting consultant with SweetWork Consulting, LLC. She and her husband have 2 sons and 2 granddaughters.
Brianne Lindsay received her Bachelor of Music degree in Vocal Performance from Brigham Young University in 2006. She has been teaching private voice and piano lessons for 22 years. She and her husband Bryan are the parents of 6 children.
Rebecca Connolly
Instrumentalists
Valerie grew up in New York in a musical family - both parents were avid chamber music players, her brother a pianist. After college she worked as a free lance violinist in NYC for a few years before going to medical school. She specialized initially in Neurology and then Neuro-ophthalmology, moving to Indianapolis in 1983 for a faculty position at IU. Her three children have relocated, each with children of their own, but she's still here, enjoying semi-retirement and playing with her long-time string quartet.
Len Cheatham has performed as both soloist and orchestral musician across the U.S. He is currently Principal Cellist of the Hendricks Symphony Orchestra. He has been a chamber music player with the U. S. Navy String Quartet, the Kuralen Trio, as well as many other chamber groups. He has played as Assistant Principal Cellist of the North Carolina Symphony Orchestra, and Principal Cellist of the Mesa Symphony Orchestra and Raleigh Symphony Orchestra. He has also performed as a member of
the Symphony of the Southwest and the Eastern Music Festival Orchestra. In 2005 he founded the
Arizona Repertory Orchestra, a sightreading group, which performs an entire 2-hour program each week in the summer, without rehearsal. He has studied with Takayori Atsumi, Cassell Grubb of DePauw University, Orlando Cole of the New School of Music in Philadelphia, and Scott Ballantyne of the Julliard School of Music. He holds a Bachelor of Music from DePauw University in Cello Performance and has performed as soloist with the North Carolina Symphony, the Phoenix Symphony and the Chandler Symphony. He also performed at the White House while a member of the Navy String Quartet. He has won the Lima Symphony Orchestra Young Artists Competition and the Phoenix Symphony Guild Young Musicians Competition, Grand Prize.
He enjoys gardening, working as a Webelos Cub Scout Leader, writing novels, composing music and playing the best video game of all time, the stock market.
Sarah has played and taught cello in the Indianapolis area for 35 years. She loves teaching, playing chamber music with friends, gardening, reading and hanging out with her grandchildren.
Thank you to each of our volunteers who helps to make this event happen.
Join the tradition by bringing one or two dozen holiday cookies to share after the program.