Stephanie Beatrice always knew in her soul that she wanted to pursue music.
She likes to call it “a higher calling,” which most recently has led her to The Philharmonic Society of Arlington, where she is creating history as the first female musical director of the Arlington-Belmont Chorale and Chamber Chorus.
Music has consumed Beatrice’s life. She started singing in choirs in preschool and eventually taught herself to play piano and trumpet. Beatrice also played in bands before going to the University of Maine to pursue a bachelor’s degree in Music Education with a focus on voice. She also earned a master’s degree at New England Conservatory in Choral Conducting. Currently, she has been part time at the Juilliard School, pursuing Orchestral Conducting as part of their extension division.
“When you are a serious musician, you want to be part of a serious organization,” Beatrice said.
At the precise moment that Beatrice was looking for a new organization with a “robust choral program” to bring her conducting skills to, The Philharmonic Society of Arlington was looking for a new music director to replace Barry Singer, who announced his retirement after 20 years.
Singer was the protege of John Bavicchi, the first chorale music director. In 1973, Bavicchi led the Arlington Philharmonic Chorus to merge with the Belmont Chorus to form the Arlington-Belmont Chorale, which exists today.
Peter Haffenreffer, the co-chair of the Philharmonic Society’s search committee, said the Bavicchi-Singer lineage defined the organization’s culture for the past 40 years.
“Although (the lineage) was great, we knew that for singing organizations to survive, you always have to bring in new people because we are aging out of our ability to sing,” said Haffenreffer, who has been singing with the chorale for 21 years now. He shares the search committee position with Kristen Borden, a long-time member of the organization.
“We needed someone who had the experience of conducting both an orchestra and chorale and who would attract a new and growing audience,” he said.
According to Haffenreffer, around 30% of the members live in the Belmont area, 60% in Arlington, and the remaining from miscellaneous areas of the state.
“(The career of being a conductor) has always been a male-dominated field,” Beatrice said. “And now, even though we’re starting to see a little breaks of women starting to enter into the profession and find opportunity, there’s still a lot of stigma around it.”
As she creates history, she is aware of the added pressure and responsibility that comes with any woman stepping into a leadership role. She said she has experienced that level of added scrutiny multiple times in her career but remains unfazed.
“I don’t really think about the fact that I’m a woman when I’m conducting. It’s about the music, first and foremost, and the expression of humanity, of emotion, of culture; it’s how we connect as a society,” she said. “For me, that transcends any aspect of gender or status of social economic anything, it’s just who we are as living souls.”
Beatrice starts her new role in September. She hopes to expand the outreach of the program and “bring Arlington to the forefront of musical making for choral works and come find choral symphonic works within the greater Boston area.”
For more information, visit the Arlington Belmont Chorale webpage.
