Michelle Graveline is Professor of Music at Assumption College in Worcester, MA, where she has taught and conducted the Assumption College Chorale for 18 years.  She is the Music Director of the Salisbury Singers of Worcester, which has more than doubled in size under her direction over the last 5 years.  She is also the Music Director of the Polymnia Choral Society in Melrose.

A graduate of Boston University and the University of Michigan, Dr. Graveline has conducted many choral works to critical acclaim, including Bach Mass in B Minor, Verdi Requiem, and Haydn Creation.  She has been an adjudicator for the Mass. Instrumental and Choral Conductors state festival and has guest-conducted massed choirs for the American Choral Directors Association, the American Guild of Organists, and for other Massachusetts festivals and concerts. She has led the Assumption Chorale on 8 national and international concert tours.  Her choirs have sung at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, and have twice had the distinction of singing for Pope John Paul II.  She has worked with such distinguished conductors as Robert Page, Vance George, Dale Warland, and Margaret Hillis.

Catharine Melhorn, President-Elect
Since retiring in 2006 after 36 years as Choral Director at Mount Holyoke College, Catharine Melhorn has been conducting a community children's chorus in South Hadley. She has led Mount Holyoke undergraduate and alumnae choirs on tours to China, South America, eastern and central Europe, England and Wales, Costa Rica, and throughout the US and Canada. Combining with collegiate men's choruses including Harvard, WPI, Cornell, and UVA, she has conducted numerous choral masterworks with orchestra. Her choirs have performed at three ACDA Eastern Division conventions, she has served as Massachusetts R&S Chair for Women's Choruses, and she has led several ACDA roundtables, repertory and interest sessions. A graduate of Smith College, she holds an MA in musicology from UC Berkeley and a DMA in choral music with a minor in viola from the University of Illinois. She began her conducting career at Lexington High School, and also taught HS and middle school in suburban New Haven. She lives in western Mass (Leverett) with husband Professor John Lemly, is mother to operatic baritone David McFerrin and MGH resident physician Diana Lemly, and mother-in-law to Boston choral conductor Jamie Kirsch.

Bill Pappazisis, Past President

William T. Pappazisis is the Director of Fine and Performing Arts for the Belmont Public Schools, where he leads a comprehensive program in music, the visual arts, theatre and dance.  In addition to his responsibilities in the Belmont Public Schools, Bill teaches choral methods at Boston University.  Prior to his tenure in Belmont, he was High School Choral Director and Fine Arts Coordinator for the Westborough Public Schools for over twenty years.  Before that, he taught elementary general music and children’s choirs in the West Hartford Public Schools in Connecticut.  He received his Bachelor of Music Education degree from The Hartt School, a Master of Music degree from the New England Conservatory of Music and a diploma from the Kodaly Musical Training Institute.  Bill furthered his graduate education in curriculum and instruction, and arts administration at the University of Massachusetts and Fitchburg State College. 

Bill has been a long-time active member of ACDA, for which he served in several capacities- Massachusetts High School R&S Chair from 1998-2001, Secretary from 2002-2004, and Eastern Division High School R&S Chair from 2004-2006.   Bill is well known throughout Massachusetts for his choral work.  He is frequently sought after throughout New England as a choral clinician, adjudicator, and guest conductor at both the middle and high school levels. He received the MICCA Paul Smith Conductor of the Year Award in 2003. For many years, Bill served as conducting assistant to Dr. Gerald Mack, Artistic Director of the Worcester Chorus, with which he toured Europe, and performed with the Boston, Baltimore, and Detroit Symphony Orchestras.  He is very active in the Massachusetts Music Educators Association, both at the district and state levels.  At the state level, Bill was active at the Massachusetts Department of Education, and was one of the authors of the Commonwealth’s first state-mandated arts curriculum.  In 2005 he received the MMEA Visionary Leadership Award.

Michael Driscoll, Treasurer
Michael Driscoll is Director of Choirs at Brookline High School, a position he has held since September 2003.  At Brookline High School he directs three choirs, advises three student-run a cappella ensembles, teaches music theory and class piano.  He is also Music Director of Saengerfest Men’s Chorus, a Boston-based community chorus of 65 singers, since October of 2001.  He has also directed the choirs at Emerson College and the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.

Driscoll is a passionate advocate for teaching music literacy skills in the choral classroom and has given presentations on the subject at a Massachusetts ACDA’s Summer Conference at Gordon College and at a workshop sponsored by Massachusetts ACDA and American Guild of Organists.

Driscoll received his Masters degree in Choral Conducting at the New England Conservatory where he studied with Simon Carrington.  He has a BS and MS in Electrical Engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute where he also minored in music.

Heather Tryon, Secretary

Megan Fitzharris Harlow, Middle School Choirs
Megan Fitzharris Harlow has been teaching general music, musical theater, and choral ensembles at the Carlisle Public Schools since 2002. She currently directs five choral groups at the school in grades 4-8, including the Carlisle Middle School Choir. Under Megan's direction, the Carlisle Middle School Choir has received multiple Gold medals at the Massachusetts Instrumental and Choral Conductors Association and has performed in Stars at Symphony at Mechanics Hall in Worcester, MA and at Symphony Hall in Boston, MA. In March 2008, the Carlisle Middle School Choir performed at the Massachusetts Music Educators Association All-State Conference Concert Hour.  In addition to her work in Carlisle, Megan was the Associate Conductor of the Gordon College Children's Choir at Gordon College from 2007-2009.  In March 2009, she was the Conductor of the Girls’ Chorus of the MMEA Northeastern District Junior Festival. She is currently the founder and artistic director of the Carlisle Community Chorus in Carlisle, MA.
  Megan developed the General Music curricula for grades 4-6 at the Carlisle Public Schools. Her passion for the development of American music from West African roots is a focus of her lessons in grades 1, 4-8. To support her teaching and further her learning, she has taken courses on West Africa and African-American music through Primary Source and the New England Conservatory. In July 2007, she traveled to Ghana on a cultural learning tour with Primary Source. As a result, she has presented workshops on utilizing and teaching West African music in the classroom for all subjects, K-12, at Primary Source and the MMEA All-State Conferences in 2009 and 2010.
  Megan received her Bachelor's of Music from Salisbury University in Maryland and her Masters of Music Education from Gordon College. Megan has studied choral conducting with Dr. Michael J. Weber, North Dakota State University, and Dr. Kenneth Phillips, Gordon College. 

Barbara Jones, Community Choirs

Steven Young, College and University

John F. Delorey received his BA in Music History from Vassar College, studied Conducting at Harvard University with Jameson Marvin, Composition at Berklee College of Music and received his Masters of Music in Choral Conducting from The Boston Conservatory, where he studied with William Cutter and Yoichi Udagawa.  He received his early choral training in the historic Choir of Men and Boys at All Saints Church, Worcester, Massachusetts. He was also a member of the nationally renowned Berkshire Boys Choir working with Sir George Guest, Allen Wicks and Alan Ridout, from which he was chosen to sing at the opening of the Kennedy Center in the premier of Leonard Bernstein's Mass. It was Bernstein who first put a baton in Delorey’s hand which sparked a lasting friendship. Delorey has sung and recorded with the Boston Camarata, Schola Cantorum of Boston and Schola Discantus of San Francisco, both as a tenor and countertenor. Delorey specializes in early music, and is currently researching materials for a new edition of Thomas Tallis's monumental motet "Spem in Alium." When not cavorting through the Renaissance, he is developing new methods toward the creation of a paperless choral environment. He is currently the Director of Choral Music and Assistant Instructor of Music at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and Choral Director at The Boston Conservatory.

Student Activities

Malcolm Halliday, Music in Worship

Malcolm Halliday is Minister of Music at the First Congregational Church in Shrewsbury, where he leads one of the largest mainline protestant church music ministries (170 participants) in New England.  He has been Artistic Director and Conductor of the Master Singers of Worcester (MSW) in Worcester, MA since the fall of 1998. This community chorus performs a broad range of repertoire from music of the medieval and renaissance periods (featured in the annual Boar’s Head Festival) through the Baroque (Handel’s Israel in Egypt), classical and romantic styles (Rossini’s Petite messe solennelle) to jazz (Duke Ellington’s Sacred Concerts) and music of contemporary composers (Ruth Watson Henderson’s Voices of Earth.) Malcolm Halliday is also the Choral Director at the Performing Arts School of Worcester where he directs the Worcester Children’s Chorus and the Worcester Youth Chorale. He currently resides in Worcester, MA where he is also on the music faculty at Clark University.  

Ethnic & Multicultural

Faith Lueth has taught choral music for over thirty years. Her choral groups have been selected to perform for state, regional, and national conferences. She is an active clinician, conductor and adjudicator for ACDA, MENC, and MMEA and has given choral workshops throughout New England and in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Mrs. Lueth serves on the executive board of MMEA and the MMEA conference committee. She has been the Eastern Division Middle School R&S Chair for ACDA and is a past president of the Massachusetts Chapter of the American Choral Directors Association. Mrs. Lueth is the recipient of several awards, including the Lowell Mason Award from MMEA, the MMEA Distinguished Service Award, and the TEC Superintendent’s Award for Excellence in Teaching. She teaches at Berklee College of Music and conducts the Gordon College Women’s Choir.

Rick Lueth, Newsletter & Website

Rick Lueth has been involved for more than thirty-five years with the design and testing of gyroscopes and accelerometers (used primarily for navigation) and statistical analysis of their data.
Rick has a BS and MS in Mechanical Engineering from MIT, where he also sang with the MIT Glee Club. His education in music includes seven years of classical piano instruction with Lina Eaton Munger.