Founded in 2010, the Greater Seattle Choral Consortium (GSCC) brings together 92 of the Seattle area’s premiere choral arts organizations in the spirit of cooperation and collegiality.
Together the members of the Consortium work to share resources, offer advice, and support each other’s efforts to bring choral music to singers and audiences throughout the greater Seattle region.
Mission Statement
Our Mission
Our mission is to promote the choral art in the greater Seattle area through collaboration, public awareness, and performance.
Our Vision
We envision a region of thriving choral ensembles that enrich our greater Seattle communities.
Three Pillars
As a further refinement of our mission and vision, the GSCC board of directors considers the following three “pillars” as fundamental to our actions:
- Foster collaboration and connectivity between member organizations
- Connect singers and audiences to choral music
- Inspire the next generation of choral singers
Membership Information
The Greater Seattle Choral Consortium serves its members through a variety of benefits that reflect our mission to promote choral music in our region.
Benefits of joining include:
- Shared Marketing: Between our online calendar, our new passport program, plus our social media presence on Facebook, Instagram, and X/Twitter, we work actively to promote your events to a broad audience.
- Finding New Singers: As a GSCC member, your choir will be featured on our Choir Finder page, which has proven to be a very effective way to bring in new singers.
- Seattle Sings events: Member choirs have the exclusive opportunity to participate in our high-profile region-wide events such as festivals and big sings.
- Member Mailing List: Plug into a large network of your peer organizations via our mailing list and tap into the collective knowledge of our local choral community.
- Member Exclusives: Members also gain access to our Sunday Session talks, our massive venues database, a concert scheduler tool, and more.
Choral Membership ($50/year) is available to any independent organization active in the performance of choral music.
All member choirs must be legally located in Washington State, and must hold their rehearsals and main-stage concerts within the geographic area bounded by the Cascade Mountains, the Pacific Ocean, Bellingham, and Olympia.
We also offer Associate Memberships ($25/year) to individuals and other entities affiliated with the choral community.
Join the GSCC Today!
Board of Directors
Meet the Greater Seattle Choral Consortium board of directors!
Members of the Board of Directors are elected each year at the Annual Meeting to 2-year terms.
Executive Committee
Wendy McKee
Joined 2019
President
David Horiuchi
Joined 2016
Past President
Aaron Giles
Joined 2016
Treasurer
Scott Kovacs
Joined 2021
Secretary
At-Large Members
Stephanie Harris
Joined 2022
Daniel Mahraun
Joined 2022
David Rice
Joined 2019
Michele Yanow
Joined 2019
Biography
Click on an board member's photo to display their biography.
Wendy McKee is originally from Chicago, Illinois and graduated from DePaul University with a Bachelor of Music degree with an emphasis on Vocal Performance.
She was the Founder and Artistic Director of Brava!, a professional women’s ensemble from 2001–2009 and also served as the Music Director for St. Paul UCC in Palatine, IL from 2002–2009.
McKee was the Artistic Director for the Palatine Children’s Chorus from 2002 to 2006, where she conducted the top 3 of their 5 choirs.
In 2009, Wendy was promoted to manage the JW Pepper store in Kent, WA, which stalled all of her choral directing and singing activities.
She worked extensively with Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Alaska ACDA groups and was also on the board of the NW ACDA as the Industry Representative.
Wendy worked with ACDA National from 2010 to 2016 on their National Convention booklets as well.
In 2016, she retired from JW Pepper in order to spend more time with her daughter.
Wendy’s daughter sings in Rainier Youth Choirs, which she loves.
Since 2017, Wendy has served on the Board of RYC as the Marketing Chair person, assisting them in all manners of marketing and working with the fundraising team as well.
Past president of the Greater Seattle Choral Consortium, David is also an active member and past president of the board of trustees of
Choir of the Sound, has sung with
Concord Chamber Choir and
Northwest Firelight Chorale,
and was a founding member of BlueStreet Voices.
David is a strong believer in the use of video as a marketing tool and has recorded video and coordinated promotional and social-media channels
for several performing-arts organizations in the area.
David is grateful for the connections he’s made through the GSCC and always enjoys seeing one of the GSCC member choirs for the first time.
In his spare time, he can often be found attending local performances of musical theatre.
Aaron Giles enjoys finding ways to connect music and technology.
He is responsible for developing GSCC’s online GIGS system, as well as day-to-day management of GSCC’s online presence, both at seattlesings.org and on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter.
Outside of his GSCC activities, Aaron is the founder of the Summer Fling Singers,
and an active tenor in the Vicars of Christ Church Compline Choir, and the St. Margaret’s Episcopal church choir.
Aaron previously spent several years singing with the Seattle Bach Choir, and served for four years as General Manager of the (now defunct) Sacred Music Chorale.
He is also the owner of the rehearsaltracks.net website,
which presents singers with tools for learning their music and navigating through recorded rehearsal tracks.
Scott Kovacs is a professional choral musician and non-profit arts administrator in the Seattle area, currently serving as Executive Director of the professional choir
Emerald Ensemble (which he helped found) as well as the Executive Director of the Medieval Women’s Choir.
He is the immediate Past President of the Compline Choir at Saint Mark’s Cathedral (where he also sings) and has an active role in the musical life of Saint Mark’s.
His arts consulting and leadership group, Arcadia Arts, assists small and mid-non-profits with development and organizational challenges.
He also teaches private voice to a growing number of students with an emphasis on the aging voice.
He is a founding (past) director of the Greater Seattle Choral Consortium and helped create the Seattle Sings Choral Festival, which he co-chairs.
Stephanie Harris is a lifelong choral singer, having sung throughout primary and secondary school and in the Pembroke College (Brown University) Glee Club under the direction of Erich Kunzel.
Stephanie currently sings with the Bainbridge Chorale.
She is a past board member of the Bainbridge Chorale, serving over the years as Secretary, Treasurer and Vice President.
In 2009, she retired from board service to become the chief administrator, assuming the post of Executive Director in 2014.
Believing strongly in the Bainbridge Chorale mission of engaging the community in choral singing activities, Stephanie instituted several ongoing public-participation programs, including the annual Messiah Sing-along,
a family-oriented caroling event each December, and a series of summer choral reading events.
Stephanie is a charter member of Schola Nova, a women’s ensemble that sings the office of Evensong monthly at St. Barnabas Episcopal Church on Bainbridge Island.
In 2019, Stephanie co-founded, with colleague Ginnilyn Hawkins, the Constellation Choir, a chamber ensemble that performs with the Bridges String Orchestra, a Bainbridge Island-based ensemble.
Her other passion, in addition to choral singing, is cultivating an ever-expanding collection of lilies at her Bainbridge residence.
Dr. Daniel A. Mahraun, in his third season as Artistic Director of the Seattle Bach Choir, is a freelance choral conductor, lyric baritone, and editor/arranger of music for choirs.
Since 2010, he has worked with the early music group The Rose Ensemble as an archivist, researcher, transcriber/editor, and performer.
As such, he was instrumental in the production of their two most recent CDs, A Toast to Prohibition and Treasures from Baroque Malta.
Mahraun has served as Director of Choral Activities at Minnesota State University Moorhead and at Bethany College (Lindsborg, Kan.).
For 10 years at the latter, he also served as Music Director of the Bethany Oratorio Society, whose appearances during the annual Messiah Festival of the Arts consisted of annual performances of Handel’s Messiah and Bach’s St. Matthew Passion.
During several years on the Big Island of Hawaii, he also guest conducted with Early Music Hawaii and the Hilo Community Chorus.
He holds degrees from the University of Colorado at Boulder, the University of Northern Iowa, and Wartburg College.
David Rice is a current Board member and active Tenor with the Seattle SeaChordsmen.
He also sings Bass at PRLC under the direction of Beth Ann Bonnecroy.
He has been the writer, director, performer, organizer and emcee for 5 musicals and 5 Holiday Shows for the SeaChordsmen.
He has been very encouraging of multiple other community choruses and youth choirs, involvement.
The December Holiday Program involved 7 different choirs and over 200 performers.
David brings a passion for performance and building community through music to the GSCC board.
David’s day job is a Financial Advisor with Edward Jones and he also is on the board of the Queen Anne Chamber of Commerce.
A lifelong choral singer, Michele Yanow is Founder and former Board President of the Seattle Jewish Chorale.
An East Coast native, she earned a Bachelor of Arts in Studio Art from Yale, where she was a devoted member/officer of the Yale Glee Club.
Michele moved to Seattle in 1992, and sang with the Seattle Gilbert and Sullivan Society, Seattle Symphony Chorale (where she served on the Chorale Council), and HachiPele (a Jewish a cappella group at UW),
before starting Seattle Jewish Chorale in 2008.
She is a charter member of the Yale Alumni Chorus—with whom she has traveled and performed around the world since 1998—and
Las Kantaderas del Noroeste, a new women’s vocal ensemble formed by Sarah Riskind to explore Sephardic choral music.
Michele has worked as a theatrical scenic artist, bookstore owner, teacher, literary/cultural event series producer and boutique pastry chef/caterer,
and has served on the boards and committees of several community non-profits.
She lives in Seattle with her husband and two daughters, and, when not singing, can usually be found gardening, cooking, baking or painting.