Patrick Reardon Gives a Perspective From the Chorus

Patrick Reardon, one of the many stories
in the Chicago Symphony Chorus

Carnegie Hall presented Verdi's Otello in concert with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus under the direction of Maestro Riccardo Muti on April 15. One of the members in the chorus was tenor Patrick Reardon. In an interview with the Litchfield County Times, the Connecticut-native gives an interesting insight into the world of one chorus member's life. Growing up in a musical household in New Hartford, his singing abilities were discovered at an early age as he performed in his local church choir. An avid sportsman, he continued to casually pursue his passion for music when he decided to attend the University of Connecticut and begin taking voice lessons. He is now studying to get his masters in music education. “I think we can’t start early enough....in instrumental work, the Suzuki method starts children as young as 3 and 4 years old on very small stringed instruments. They achieve phenomenal results when they get older, and are so much more advanced that their peers who start in the fourth or fifth grades.” As he continues his education, he gets his income from being a member of the Chicago Symphony

Riccardo Muti leads the Chicago Symphony
Orchestra and Chorus at Carnegie Hall
(Photo: Joshua Bright/The New York Times)

Chorus and the St. James Cathedral Choir. Once finished with his education he hopes to teach four or five years at the high school level before he pursues a doctorate in conducting. Singing with the Chicago Symphony Chorus has one major perk besides the music for this 25-year old, he gets to perform with his his fiancée, Katherine Kahrmann, who is also in the Grammy Award-winning group. So the next time you're at a concert with orchestra, soloists and a famous conductor, remember there are more than 100 individual stories of the chorus members behind it all. [Source]