Our Early Music Sing-A-Long: Christmas & Advent Edition is back! Come and spend a Saturday morning singing early music favorites for Christmas and Advent with special guest conductors Matt Phelps, Ben Owen, and Sara Cahill. No experience required. You can also just sit and listen, if you’d like.
Repertoire will be send to registered participants and linked here closer to the event. (Did you know you can sign up to be notified whenever we schedule a new sing-a-long or other festival event? See the options and sign up here!)
Curious what we’ll be singing? Here you go!
Tickets are not required for this free event, but please register so we can accurately prepare.
SARA CAHALL is currently working in the Cincinnati area as a collaborative pianist, organist, and choral director. Her positions include Associate Professor of Choral Activities at Thomas More University, where she directs Dolce, the auditioned women’s chorus. She is also Minister of Music at Ascension &Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in Wyoming, OH, accompanist for Little Miami High School Choirs, and a teaching artist for May Festival MiNiS. Cahall completed a Bachelor of Arts degree at Bowling Green State University, a Master of Music degree from The University of Arizona, and partial doctoral studies at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. During her studies at CCM she also served as organ scholar at Christ Church Cathedral Cincinnati. Recently, she has worked as accompanist for the Cincinnati Boychoir from 2019-2025, and she has been featured as a pre-service recitalist for an Evensong at Christ Church Cathedral and a Bach Vespers service at St. Thomas Episcopal Terrace Park, guest organist for Evensongs at Christ Church Glendale.
BEN OWEN is a Cincinnati-based, choral conductor, composer, and pianist recognized for his collaborative leadership, creative programming, and engaging compositional style. He currently serves as Director of Music Ministries at Hyde Park Community United Methodist Church, where he conducts two weekly adult choirs and oversees a comprehensive music ministry program. Ben also serves as the Artistic Director of the Cincinnati Camerata, a thirty-two voice chamber choir with membership drawn from the wider Cincinnati musical community. Previously, he founded and conducted the Eastern Iowa based semi-professional early music choir Canticum Novum, focusing on the Latin vocal music of William Byrd. Ben holds a Bachelor of Music in K-12 Choral/General Music Education from the University of Northern Iowa and a Master of Arts in Choral Conducting and Pedagogy from the University of Iowa, where he also served as a teaching assistant to his teachers, Dr. Timothy Stalter and Dr. David Puderbaugh.
MATTHEW PHELPS is the Artistic Director of Collegium Cincinnati and the Minister of Music at West End United Methodist Church in Nashville, TN. At Collegium Cincinnati, he leads a professional choral and instrumental ensemble renowned for its performances of early and new music, including an annual rendition of Handel's Messiah. At West End, he leads a comprehensive church music program that includes two adult choirs, four children's and youth choirs, and two handbell choirs. He was also the Founder and Artistic Director of the professional chamber choir Vocal Arts Nashville and has served on the faculties of Xavier University, Lipscomb University, and Vanderbilt University. His choirs have sung for the Music Educators’ National Conference, the American Choral Directors Association, the Anglican Association of Musicians, and the American Guild of Organists. He has the distinction of winning awards in three separate disciplines (organ, piano, and conducting), including the 2015 American Prize in Choral Conducting.