Soprano: Andrea Veal
Andrea Veal Artist Bio
Soprano Andrea Veal received an MA in music history and a BA in vocal performance from the University of New Hampshire. She and her husband Michael live on a one-acre homestead in Rochester, NH with their chickens, beehives, and rescued cat. Andrea has performed as a chorister with the Handel and Haydn Society and Boston Baroque and as a soloist with the early music ensembles Melopeo, The Hampshire Consort, the Woodman Consort, and Capella Alamire, among others. She has appeared in oratorio and orchestral engagements with the NH Phil, Walker Lecture Series, Portsmouth Pro Musica, the Nashua Choral Society, the Seacoast Choral Society, and others. She is also a long-time church musician, serving as a soloist for First Church Christ, Scientist, Portsmouth and Dover. Andrea directs the Andrea Veal Voice Studio in Rochester, NH. Her students receive recognition at the local, state, regional, and national level, performing in musicals, bands, churches, as solo acts, in choirs, and above all else for themselves in their own living rooms and kitchens! She has served on the board of Granite State NATS (National Association of Teachers of Singing) since 2004, organizing professional development events and student auditions.
From the performer:
“As a member of the Handel and Haydn Society chorus, I have had the best seat in the house on the stage of Symphony Hall many times for performances of Messiah. It is one of my all-time favorite works, bringing us all- audience and performers alike- along on the epic life journey of Jesus Christ, with its incredible highs and lows. I hope to express in my singing the creativity and passion that Handel’s writing so deserves. As many times as I have heard and sung this music, it never ceases to surprise me. I am thrilled to be with you tonight.”
Alto: Deborah Rentz-Moore
Deborah Rentz-Moore has been described as a “magnificent lower-reaching mezzo-soprano” (Classical Voice North America) and is known for her “deep, radiant clear tone” (Early Music America) and her “effortlessly warm and resonant mezzo, with exquisite control over vibrato” (Boston Classical Review). She enjoys frequent solo collaborations with the celebrated ensembles Emmanuel Music, Aston Magna and The Boston Camerata. Her solo engagements with the Boston Early Music Festival, Handel+Haydn Society, Tapestry, Voices of Music, Ensemble Phoenix Munich, Terezín Music Foundation and Magnificat Baroque have brought her to such venues as Lincoln Center, the Paris Philharmonie, Utrecht Early Music Festival, Prague Spring Festival, Boston Symphony Hall, Jordan Hall, Boston MFA and Tanglewood.
Specializing in vocal works of the Baroque and earlier, Ms. Rentz-Moore’s vocal pursuits are nonetheless expansive, with many notable premieres of new music, highlighting repertoires of under-represented composers, and featuring popular vocal styles in diverse vocal ranges.
Solo performances in 2025-26 include a recital of Charles Ives’ vocal music with Donald Berman for Aston Magna, Bach’s “Weinachts-Oratorium” at Emmanuel, “Messiah” with the Concord Community Chorus, “Trav’ling Home,” “Midnight Cry,” “Sing we Noël” and “Farewell Unkind” with The Boston Camerata.
Ms. Rentz-Moore’s recordings on Musica Omnia, Centaur, Meridian and Harmonia Mundi span genres and eras, from Monteverdi, Cozzolani and Bach to early American, Shaker and 21st-century works. She appears on video with Voices of Music, Emmanuel Music, The Boston Camerata and the University of New Hampshire, where she is Resident Artist in Voice.
Dedicated to both performing and teaching, Ms. Rentz-Moore is proud to support a broad spectrum of learners at her UNH voice studio, where she also directs the Vocal Arts Project and teaches Vocal Pedagogy with a special interest in vocal acoustics and singers’ cognition. She has served as a Vice President of Granite State NATS since 2020, and her students have won and placed at chapter and regional NATS auditions in classical, contemporary music and musical theatre divisions. Ms. Rentz-Moore is featured on The Boston Camerata’s critically-acclaimed “Free America” and “Hodie Christus Natus Est” recordings (2019, 2021- Harmonia Mundi).
Tenor: Sean Parr
Sean Parr, tenor, is Professor of Music at Saint Anselm College where he teaches voice
performance, conducting, and music history. He has performed many operatic roles, including the title roles in Gounod’s Faust and Massenet’s Werther, Rodolfo in La bohème, Kaspar in Amahl and the Night Visitors, Eisenstein in Die Fledermaus, Acis in Handel’s Acis and Galatea, and Ferrando in Cosí fan tutte, with companies such as Raylynmor Opera, Opera North, the Natchez Festival of Music, the Irvington Music Festival, Regina Opera, Brooklyn Repertory Opera, and Eastern Festival Opera, among others. Most recently, he performed Tamino in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte and Ferrando in Cosí fan tutte with Opera51. In concert, he has performed as tenor soloist in works such as Handel’s Messiah, Respighi’s Laud to the Nativity, Mozart’s Requiem, Dvorak’s Mass in D, Bach’s Ascension Oratorio, and Saint-Saëns’s Christmas Oratorio, with groups such as Ensemble ExCathedra, the ProMusica Singers, Concord Chorale, Chorus pro Musica, and the Manchester Choral Society. He earned his BA at Dartmouth College, where he studied music and mathematics. After a brief stint as
a software engineer, he earned his MM from Florida State University, studying Voice Performance, and then completed his PhD in Historical Musicology from Columbia University. His first book—Vocal Virtuosity: The Origins of the Coloratura Soprano in Nineteenth-Century Opera—was recently published by Oxford University Press. Hailed by both opera singers and musicologists, the book has been praised as “provocative, engaging, and thoroughly original.” He is thrilled to be singing Messiahagain with Ben Greene and the Concord Community Chorus and Orchestra.
Bass: Mark Andrew Cleveland
Mark Andrew Cleveland, bass, with extensive credits as a soloist with many of the premiere choral ensembles in the Northeast, made his Boston Symphony Orchestra debut in Bach’s St. Matthew Passion under the direction of Bernard Haitink. In addition, Mr. Cleveland’s Boston credits include appearances with the Back Bay Chorale, Boston Baroque, Cantata Singers, Spectrum Singers, Masterworks Chorale, Boston Cecilia, Brookline Chorus as well as the Andover Choral Society, Chatham Chorale, Chorus North Shore, Harvard Pro Musica, Newburyport Chorale, Northfield Chorus and Worcester Chorus. He has performed with the Bach Choir of Bethlehem, PA, The Southwest Florida Symphony, Festival of Two Worlds in Charleston, SC and Spoleto, Italy and the Vermont Symphony. During the Thirtieth Anniversary tour with Boston Baroque, Mr. Cleveland soloed at Tanglewood, Ravinia and at the Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. Mr. Cleveland has recorded for Telarc with Boston Baroque and participated in a Grammy award-winning recording of Barber’s opera Antony and Cleopatra with the
Spoleto Festival Chorus and Orchestra. In addition, Mr. Cleveland has appeared with the Tyaga String Quartet, Arcadia Players, Sarasa and performed at the Mürten Classics Festival in Switzerland and at the Holland Festival Oudemuziek Utrecht in the Netherlands with La Donna Musicale. Mr. Cleveland has given recitals in the Netherlands, the Gardner Museum’s Young Artists Series and throughout New England. A dramatic operatic performer, he appeared in the critically acclaimed production of Granite State Opera’s Lucia di Lammermoor by Donizetti. Additionally, he has performed for New Jersey June Opera Festival, Granite State Opera and Monadnock Music and for Prism Opera and Salisbury Opera in Massachusetts. He has
been a featured soloist in performances at many colleges and music schools including Brandeis,
Dartmouth, Harvard, M.I.T., Smith, Tufts and at the Universities of Massachusetts, New Hampshire and North Carolina.A resident of New Hampshire who first joined the Monadnock Chorus upon his arrival in the state, Mr. Cleveland has appeared with many of the local community choral groups, including the Concord Chorale, Keene Chorale, Kearsage Chorale, Manchester Choral Society, Monadnock Chorus, Nashua Choral Society, Seacoast Singers, Pemigewasset Choral Society, Portsmouth Pro Musica and Handel Society of Dartmouth College. Mr. Cleveland’s recent performances included appearances with Symphony NH, First Music, and critically acclaimed performances of Mendelssohn’s Elias and Brahms’Requiem with Cantata Singers. In addition to performances with the Kearsage Chorale this season, Mr.
Cleveland will solo with the Cantata Singers in Beethoven’s Missa Solenmnis and in the US premiere performance of Zelenka’s Missa Divi Xaverii. A senior adjunct faculty member at the University of Massachusetts in Lowell, Mr. Cleveland teaches at Phillips Exeter Academy and at St. Paul’s School in Concord, NH. As a Part Time Music Faculty member of the Phillips Exeter Academy community, Mr. Cleveland has taught at the Summer School since the summer of 2003. In addition to his active performing and teaching schedule, Mr. Cleveland, a magna cum laude graduate of Westminster Choir College, serves as the Director of Music at Grace Episcopal Church in Manchester, NH.
Concord Community Chorus Messiah 