Music Director

Jane Ring Frank, who joined Cantemus in Fall 2011, is the seventh conductor to hold the position of Cantemus Music Director.

Jane Ring Frank is best known in Boston as the Founder/Artistic Director of Boston Secession, a critically-acclaimed professional chorus that broke musical barriers from 1996 -2010, when it ended its 13-year run. That 25-member ensemble was conceived as a laboratory for modernizing professional vocal performance. Ring Frank’s goal was to bring the audience more deeply into the music, helping them to, as she said, “hear the music, not the chorus” by creating a uniquely transparent sound, achieved through application of typically orchestral techniques to the ensemble. The Boston Globe called Secession an “extraordinary chorus, notable for its beautiful balance, musical surety, and English-styled straight-toned singing” (March, 2008), while Tom Garvey of the Hub Review praised the ensemble for its “lushly transparent singing conducted with intelligence and wit” (February, 2007).

Ring Frank said: “I believe that vocal music is a uniquely powerful way to share intellectual ideas and has the power, above all arts, to create community. My aim is to create, through superlative performances, a deeper connection between the singers and their audience. Cantemus has always been solidly connected to its audience, and together we work to deepen and expand that relationship.”

With degrees in accompanying as well as conducting, Ring Frank is a Resident Scholar at the Women’s Studies Research Center at Brandeis University, Minister of Music at the First Congregational Church in Winchester, and Artistic Director of the Concord Women’s Chorus of 50 voices. Previously, she was a faculty member at Emerson College for 12 years, and the Conductor of Philovox, publishing house E.C. Schirmer’s resident professional recording chorus.

Sister Pat Rolinger, the president of Cantemus’ board of directors (who are all singers in the group), calls Ring Frank “a conductor’s conductor, with superb musicianship — and a great sense of humor. In her first year with us, our singers and our audiences have been thrilled!”

To download photos, please visit Jane Ring Frank's website.