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Name: Forgotten Voices: The Courageous Women Behind the Music (at Canterbury Parish House Community Center)
Start: 2025-06-29T19:00:00-04:00
End: 2025-06-29T20:00:00-04:00

CCMS 2025 Senior Profile: Emma Richardson

by Jeff Selesnick Students are drawn to Concord Community Music School for a variety of reasons. Some seek the thrill of mastering a new instrument, or the harmony found in playing alongside others. Some arrive with dreams that echo on concert stages, honing their craft with passion and purpose. And others come simply to make music for the quietest of audiences—even if that audience is only their own heart. Emma Richardson, a longtime CCMS student and graduating high school senior, decided at an early age that the Music School would be a perfect place to help her achieve one of her life goals – appearing on the TV show competition “America’s Got Talent.” “My family is not particularly musical, but I grew up having a lot of exposure to music,” recalls Emma. “I remember watching Susan Boyle sing “I Dreamed a Dream” on “America’s Got Talent” and deciding I wanted to be on the [American version] someday, just like her and so many others I idolized.” Emma’s dream launched with her joining some of CCMS’s most popular children’s programs: “Music and Movement” at age 3 with her grandmother, “Take Three” classes which feature instruction in piano, recorder, and movement, and the Purple Finches Youth Chorus – a group she performed with for eight years. She also cites her summers at CCMS’ Creative Arts Camp for “fostering some of my earliest friendships and fondest memories.” After taking full advantage of the School’s group offerings, Richardson began adding private lessons to her schedule, starting with piano lessons with Kathy Southworth as a grade-schooler and including voice lessons with Hannah Murray as she neared middle school. After building a solid foundation in both voice and piano, Emma was poised to enter high school with a well-developed skill set and an eye to join a number of performing groups there. Unfortunately, those plans were put on hold just weeks into her freshman year, when she was diagnosed with Muscle Tension Dysphonia, a voice disorder caused by excessive muscle tension in and around the voice box. The symptoms forced Emma to take a months-long hiatus from singing while she consulted vocal coaches and doctors familiar with the disorder. After considerable amounts of vocal therapy and fine-tuning her technique, she was able to re-engage with her vocal repertoire. With her voice back to full strength, Emma has enjoyed a high school career replete with choral concerts and musical theater moments. She remained diligent in her lessons with Murray (no longer at CCMS) and Southworth, selecting varied pieces to perform, developing her ear training, and leveraging her teachers’ expertise to help with her music theory exams. Through her high school career, she has seen the change in her musical acumen, and honed in on the elements of music that are the most engaging and rewarding. “I owe so much to all of my incredible teachers over the years,” says Emma. “In particular Maria Isaak, who has been one of my top supporters since the day I walked through the community room doors, and Kathy Southworth, who has taught me an immense amount in my eight years of piano lessons with her.” “Although I’ve always loved musical theater, as I’ve grown, I’ve realized that my heart belongs to classical music,” she notes. “I love singing Italian arias and playing classical or romantic style pieces on the piano. After I went through my vocal trauma, I realized that singing classical music was so much healthier for my voice, and I have found a love for challenging myself to expand my classical repertoire.” Emma will continue to challenge herself this coming fall, as she embarks on her collegiate career at UMass Amherst. She plans to double major in Vocal Performance and Theater (with an emphasis in audio engineering). While she doesn’t yet have a specific path for where her studies will take her, her many options include becoming a professional singer, a concert/theater audio engineer, or venturing into music/theater education. (And, of course, an appearance on “America’s Got Talent.”) “I know one thing though,” she says, “and that is whatever path I end up on, music will always walk by my side.” ###
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CCMS Alumna Kelsey Rogers Combines STEM and Music to Compose a Career in Architectural Acoustics

by Jeff SelesnickIt had been several years since Kelsey Rogers had taken a piano lesson. Yes, she had found time to play the instrument with some regularity. But she knew that her technique and execution weren’t quite at her peak from years ago. With a major performance looming, Kelsey reached out to her longtime piano teacher, former CCMS faculty member Gregg Pauley, to help sharpen her skills and dial in her interpretation of the selected pieces. And before she knew it, there she was on the stage at Symphony Hall in Boston, in front of hundreds of people, ready to showcase the craft she honed all those years ago at Concord Community Music School.As far as Kelsey was concerned, music has always been just as important as school. She started piano lessons with Pauley at the Music School as a grade schooler, then added violin to her repertoire. She reveled in the familiar cadence of finishing her school day, doing homework in various Music School nooks while she waited for her lessons, and playing her instruments in solo and ensemble settings. It instilled in her a deep love of music, something that she knew from an early age would be a lasting presence in her life. “Even though I didn’t see myself becoming a professional musician, I had a strong desire to keep music as part of my career path,” she says.Throughout school, Kelsey gravitated towards the STEM disciplines. As she approached the end of her high school years, she was determined to find a way to combine her strengths in subjects like physics and math with her passion for music. She was excited to discover the field of acoustics but frustrated to find that very few American colleges offered courses in the discipline, especially at the undergraduate level. Kelsey decided to pursue a degree in mechanical engineering at Princeton University, hoping it would give her fundamentals in physics, engineering, and math that she could combine with music by the end of her collegiate career. The curriculum proved to be more rigorous than she had anticipated and there were moments where she questioned if she had made the right choice. “I wasn’t one of those students who got excited about robotics or building things in the machine shop or other things people in my major naturally gravitate towards.”After unsuccessfully attempting to find an internship in acoustics during her first two years at Princeton, Kelsey was able to secure an internship at the audio giant Bose as a junior and senior. Even after graduating with her undergraduate degree in 2014, she still needed additional education to pursue a career in the field. Kelsey took the advice of a Princeton alum and pursued a master’s degree in architectural acoustics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Upon graduation in 2015, she was offered a consulting position at the Boston-based acoustics firm Acentech.Kelsey’s favorite projects throughout her consulting career to date have been opportunities to design and create educational performing arts centers. From her time at CCMS, she knows first-hand the importance of these spaces and regularly reflected on her music school days while designing performance spaces at the Peddie School, Middlesex School, Phillps Exeter Academy, and beyond. “The best day on any of these (years-long) projects is the ‘acoustical checkout’ right before the building is turned over to the owner,” she notes. “We bring all our acoustical measurement gear to the building – all sorts of microphones, loudspeakers, computers, etc., but most importantly, our instruments and our ears. It’s the ultimate combination of STEM and art.”As a result of her own experience trying to get into acoustics as an undergrad, Kelsey began teaching architectural acoustics classes at Tufts University after a few years at Acentech. With an aim to help grow the program, Kelsey takes great pride in exposing students to the world of acoustics, especially when those students begin career paths in the field. “There are so many kids who have played instruments growing up or who like music and are interested in it in some way, and it can feel like a completely separate universe from the engineering and the STEM classes that they’re taking. I wanted to be a part of trying to show students all of the interesting intersections that they could find between those fields.”Kelsey’s newest project is a summer program called “Engineering of Music,” which debuts this July. The program exposes high school students to the intersection of art and engineering… and exposes the world to the unique program that Tufts offers.Kelsey was also the natural choice to feature on piano when the annual Acoustical Society of America conference came to Boston and attendees were treated to a behind-the-scenes tour of Symphony Hall. With abundant classical piano chops and expertise in the acoustics realm, she jumped at the opportunity to fill the air with music as her colleagues marveled at one of the world’s finest performance spaces. It was one of many culminations of her profound love of music, a mind for STEM, and a strong desire to marry the two.“Growing up, CCMS was as important to me as school was and so music needed to be as important as all of the STEM work,” she says. “That need to weave music into my profession would not have existed without my time at CCMS.”###
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CCMS Pays Tribute to Miles Davis on April 10, 2025

by Jeff SelesnickOn Thursday, April 10, The Bank of New Hampshire Stage will once again play host to what is quickly becoming a flagship event in the Concord Community Music School calendar. Continuing the tradition of the popular “Jazz in January” series, CCMS’s April Jazz Night, now in its third year and featuring the CCMS Jazz All-Stars, has taken on a life of its own. This annual event,held at the Bank of New Hampshire State in Downtown Concord celebrates legends of the genre and raises money for the Music School’s financial aid program.“This annual event is special for the school for many reasons – it gives our faculty an opportunity to perform together, showcase our enthusiasm for the genre to attendees, and socialize with the community before and after the event,” says CCMS jazz and popular music department chair Zeb Cruikshank, who is also the music coordinator for this year’s event, “A Jazz Milestone: A Miles Davis Tribute”.Cruikshank was drawn to Davis, one of the most iconic jazz musicians of all time, thanks in large part to Davis’s most famous album, Kind of Blue. He explains, “With its personnel of legendary jazz musicians like John Coltrane and Cannonball Adderly, and track list consisting of popular jazz standards like ‘All Blues’ and ‘So What,’ the album has had a lasting impact on fans and performers of jazz for decades.”Not wanting to just play the songs off Davis’ seminal work, Cruikshank implored his bandmates to help him fill out the set list. Because of the trumpeter’s prolific nature, the task was both intriguing and challenging.“Miles is one of those artists who never stopped innovating – starting out in the 1940s playing alongside Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, and ending his career working on a hip-hop record in 1991,” notes bassist Matt Hogan. “We’re going to try and cover as much as we can and hope to try and express in a small way just how much ground Miles covered during his incredible life.”The CCMS Jazz All-Stars is comprised of CCMS faculty, alumni, and friends, with an aim to not only entertain but educate eager concertgoers. The rhythm section includes Hogan on bass and Jared Steer on drums; both have played all three of the April Jazz Night performances. Cruikshank (playing guitar) is making his second appearance at the event, debuting at last year’s tribute to the music of drummer Max Roach. Andrew Grosvenor (keys) and Russ Ryan (trumpet) will be making their first appearance at the event.The group has become adept at not only performing exquisite jazz but utilizing the audio-visual capabilities of the venue to provide context to the music they perform. Displaying album artwork and historic images on a large screen behind the performers has become a signature style of the event, adding depth to the overall experience. Patrons can expect what has become a classic CCMS Jazz Night scene, replete with tapping feet, ah-ha moments, and a palpable adoration of jazz music.“Jazz Night owes so much of its success to the hard work of the staff behind the scenes – there’s so much involved in making this night happen on top of the work everyone is doing every day at the school,” notes Hogan. “It would be easy to treat this like any other event, but the staff really goes the extra mile to make the evening special.”To purchase tickets for “A Jazz Milestone”, visit ccanh.com.
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June 29

June 29 @ 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm

Forgotten Voices: The Courageous Women Behind the Music (at Canterbury Parish House Community Center)

There are no events on this day.