By Arnold Gordon
At the October 29 meeting of the Retired Men’s Association Tad Larrabee introduced and interviewed Christine Howlett, a soprano and music director of the Greenwich Choral Society (GCS) since 2024.
Howlett earned a bachelor of vocal performance from the University of Toronto and a master’s degree in early music voice performance and a doctor of musical arts in choral conducting at Indiana University. Originally a Canadian, she is Professor of Music and Director of Choral Activities at Vassar College where she conducts the Vassar College Choir and Treble Chorus and teaches music theory and voice. Her choruses have sung at Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall, at the National Collegiate Choral Organization and the Eastern Region Conference of the American Choral Directors Association. Howlett was a guest conductor and chorus master for the Hudson Valley Philharmonic, and is the Artistic Director of Cappella Festiva, a choral ensemble in the Hudson Valley. A supporter of contemporary music, she has commissioned and premiered works of many composers. Upcoming works include a consortium commission by Tim Takach and Rob Mathes for GCS’s 100th anniversary. She initiated a series of GCS “Family Concerts” last year aimed at youngsters and their parents. It was very successful and will continue this year as a holiday family concert on Saturday, December 6 at 2:30 pm at Christ Church.
Howlett spoke about the organization’s “extremely special” landmark 100th anniversary season and reflected on a career defined by musical passion and unexpected problems. For the highly anticipated December concert at Christ Church, she curated a program of music she called “literally my favorite things.” The centerpiece will blend festive classical works with a significant piece of American music. Selections include Johann Sebastian Bach’s “Cantata for Christmas Day,” which Howlett, a self-proclaimed “huge fan” of his challenging choral music, selected for its joyful and celebratory orchestration featuring four trumpets, three oboes, timpani, and strings. She will also include movements from Benjamin Britten’s famous “A Ceremony of Carols,” adapting some for women’s voices and others for the full mixed choir. That concert will take place on Sunday, December 7 at 2:30 pm and 5:30 pm.
Significantly, the concert will feature the complete performance of “Ballad of the Brown King” by Margaret Bonds. Howlett explained that Bonds, an African-American composer who collaborated with poet Langston Hughes on the work, aimed to create an African-American experience that celebrated the three Kings of Bethlehem. Bonds’ work, which blends romantic style with elements of gospel and jazz, had “sadly disappeared” from the repertoire, highlighting the difficult path for female and African-American composers. To fit the Christ Church venue and to manage costs, the GCS will perform an edition arranged for strings and harp by conductor and baritone Malcolm Merriweather.
Howlett recalled several career touchstones. She described her first time conducting George Frideric Handel’s Messiah in its entirety with a Baroque ensemble, calling it the “most wonderful” yet “most scary” performance of her career. She also recounted the intense preparation required for Richard Einhorn’s Voices of Light, a score written for a silent film about Joan of Arc. Because there was no track, Howlett had to memorize the entire film, frame by frame, to cue the orchestra, labeling the difficulty of the preparation “off the charts.” Howlett also discussed two “near calamities” that tested her composure while leading the women’s chorus at Vassar College. During a pivotal performance in Baltimore, while conducting Franz Schubert’s 23rd Psalm, Howlett stopped the music after noticing one of the singers signaling distress regarding a student who seemed to have disappeared. A student who felt faint due to her not having eaten before the concert, fell from her position but the situation was resolved calmly. A more serious event occurred in Chicago when a student suffered a seizure during a fast, rhythmic piece. Howlett, maintaining a public sense of calm, coordinated the emergency response, reflecting later on the emotional toll such moments take.
Her philosophy on collaboration focuses on finding musical individuals who are also kind. Howlett spoke highly of soloist Katherine Whyte, who will perform with the GCS in May, noting she first “fell in love” with Whyte’s talent and kindness years ago. She also shared the genesis of her friendship with British composer Tarik O’Regan. After hearing and being inspired by his music, Howlett contacted O’Regan in the 2000s — a luxury not possible in earlier decades with no Internet — and commissioned him for a piece for the Vassar Music Department. Howlett embraces a diverse repertoire, detailing how she overcame an early snobbish preference for conducting only works by classical music composers like Bach and Mozart. She came to appreciate that genres like popular music are not “less than” classical music if the arrangements are excellent. She cited Eric Whitacre’s spectacular choral arrangement of a Nine Inch Nails song about addiction, a piece that moved her deeply, demonstrating the power of popular music within the choral form.
Howlett also highlighted modern trends in contemporary classical music, notably the rise of “consortium commissions,” which allow multiple organizations, like the Greenwich Choral Society, to commission pieces — such as one by Timothy Takach involving video and visual art — making new music more sustainable for artists. Collaboration is key, as demonstrated by the GCS’s performance of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony last year with the Greenwich Symphony Orchestra and conductor Stuart Malina. Fred Volkwein, Chairman of the GCS board who was in the audience, noted that this kind of external collaboration is highly valued.
The RMA’s next presentation, “The Invisible Spy: Churchill’s Rockefeller Spy Ring and America’s First Secret Agent of World War II,” by Thomas Maier, is scheduled for 11 AM on Wednesday, November 12, 2025. RMA presentations are held at Christ Church Greenwich, Parish Hall, 254 E. Putnam Avenue, Greenwich, CT 06830.
The Invisible Spy is the story of Ernest Cuneo, an ex-NFL player who in 1940 became America’s first spy of WWII. Cuneo worked secretly with Winston Churchill’s spies at Rockefeller Center in New York City, which included Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond, who dedicated his novel Thunderball to Cuneo. Thomas Maier will also talk about “Mafia spies,” how the CIA hired two gangsters to assassinate Cuba’s Fidel Castro during the JFK Cold War era and how these cases helped influence today’s intelligence agencies and the debate about the so-called “deep state.”
Thomas Maier is an award-winning author, television producer and former Newsday investigative reporter, columnist, and editorial board member. He worked 40 years for Newsday, from 1984-2024. He is the author and producer of the Emmy-winning Showtime drama series Masters of Sex, adapted from his dual biography of William Masters and Virginia Johnson, and also the author and producer of Mafia Spies, a six-part documentary series which appeared in 2024.
The Invisible Spy is an Amazon Editors’ Best Book in History for April 2025. His other books include All That Glitters: Anna Wintour, Tina Brown, and the Rivalry Inside America’s Richest Empire; When Lions Roar: The Churchills and the Kennedys; The Kennedys: America’s Emerald Kings; and Dr. Spock: An American Life, which was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year.
As an investigative reporter at Newsday, Maier twice won the National Society of Professional Journalists Sigma Delta Chi award. He also won the Daniel Pearl Award from the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. His 2009 multi-media project about victims of H-bomb testing in the Pacific won the National Headliners Award. He is a graduate of Fordham University and received his Master’s in 1982 from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
To stream the presentation by Thomas Maier at 11 AM on Wednesday, November 12, click on https://bit.ly/30IBj21. This presentation will also be available on local public access TV channels, Verizon FIOS channel 24 and Optimum channel 79.
Note: The views expressed in these presentations are those of the speakers. They are not intended to represent the views of the RMA or its members.
RMA speaker presentations are presented as a community service at no cost to in-person or Zoom attendees, regardless of gender. Any member of the public who would like to receive a weekly email announcement of future speakers should send a request to members@greenwichrma.org. The RMA urges all eligible individuals to consider becoming a member of our great organization, and thereby enjoy all the available fellowship, volunteer, and community service opportunities which the RMA offers to its members. For further information, go to https://greenwichrma.org/, or contact info@greenwichrma.org.
