STAFF
Charles Turner, Music Director
Charles began to play piano at six and was singing soprano in his church's junior choir a few years later. By high school he was directing the adult choir, singing bass, playing double bass, and composing music.
He went on to earn a degree in vocal music performance at the University of Iowa and a Masters in Music Theory and Composition at U. Mass, Amherst. At about this time he became choir director at the Hadley Congregational Church, and later at Edwards Church in Northampton. He became Music Director and Composer in Residence at Holy Trinity in 2005.
Charles has performed and recorded with Capella Alamire, the John Oliver Chorale, the Cantata Singers of Boston, the Blue Heron Renaissance Choir and the Church of the Advent Choir. His compositions have been played and sung by various groups in the Boston area, as well as in the Midwest and as far away as Germany.
He also enjoys playing the classical music of Japan on the shakuhachi (an end-blown bamboo flute).
Since 2002, Charles and wife Nancy have been composing and writing musical theater and opera in conjunction with the New Opera and Musical Theater Initiative (NOMTI).
For more about Charles, including samples of his compositions, go to www.hand2ear.com.
Nancy Rexford, Organist and Assistant Choir DirectorNancy has been playing the organ for Holy Trinity since 1988. She also assists her husband, Charles Turner, in directing and choosing music for the Senior Choir.
Although trained as a pianist, Nancy's first love has always been vocal music, and she has accompanied singers in lessons, recitals and public performances for over forty years, including a stint as accompanist in the voice department at Smith College. Her first organ job was in the late 1970s at the First Congregational Church in Hadley, Mass, where Charles was the music director.
She began composing vocal music at the age of 15, and her work includes numerous arts songs, anthems for church choir, and a musical based on the life of George Sand. She also provided the libretto for the Sand musical, as well as for Komachi, an opera by Charles Turner based on a 14th century Japanese Noh play. She and Charles often collaborate on musical projects. These currently include a song cycle based on Prayers from the Ark by Carmen Bernos de Gasztold (translated by Rumer Godden), and an original song cycle called Flying Cloud (about the clipper ship of that name), for which she is writing words and Charles the music.
From 2004-2007, she was Executive Director of the New Opera and Musical Theater Initiative, a Boston-based writers’ group and she is still very active in that organization. She has also been involved in amateur theater as a musician, actor, and costume designer and enjoyed an earlier career as a costume historian and museum consultant. She earned degrees in English from Vassar College and the University of Iowa.
Anne Bennettbio coming soon
