Music Staff
Kirsten Hedegaard, Director
of Music
Kirsten Hedegaard has enjoyed a dual career as a singer and
conductor. As a soprano soloist, she has been praised for her voice
that “blends beautifully” (Chicago Tribune) and “soars perfectly in
the upper registers” (Barrington Quintessential). She has performed
numerous Bach cantatas and baroque chamber music and has been a
soloist with many early music specialists including Nicholas McGegan,
Paul Hillier, Ivars Taurins, Kenneth Slowik, and John Butt. Ms.
Hedegaard has sung with Tafelmusik, Philharmonia Baroque, the
Newberry Consort, Ars Antiqua, the Opera Company and Bella Voce,
among other ensembles. Also interested in contemporary music, Ms.
Hedegaard has premiered several new works and was engaged as soprano
soloist for an international tour of Louis Andriessens’s The
Odyssey. This past winter she made her debut with the Grammy-award
winning new music ensemble, eighth blackbird.
Currently on faculty at Loyola University, Ms. Hedegaard has taught
conducting at Concordia University, River Forest and has conducted
choirs and orchestras for various institutions including Eastman
House, Chicago Children’s Choir, Gallery 37, Loyola Academy, and the
University of California. She was guest conductor with Chicago
Choral Artists for the 2009-10 season and is the former conductor
for the Bella Voce Outreach program. In 2000, she co-founded The
Musical Offering, a nonprofit music school in Evanston where she
held the position of Executive Director until 2005. She also holds
the position of Director of Music at the Presbyterian Church of
Barrington.
Ms. Hedegaard holds a BM from Northwestern University and her MA in
conducting from the University of CA, where she was assistant to
Paul Hillier. In 2008 she was invited to be a conducting Fellow at
the Yale Norfolk Festival, studying with Simon Carrington.
Richard Leasure, Organist
Richard Leasure began his duties as Organist at The Presbyterian
Church of Barrington in September of 2007. Immediately prior
to this position, he served for six years as Organist and Assistant
Director of Music at Trinity United Methodist Church
in Mount Prospect.
Richard received his undergraduate degree in Church Music and Organ from Westminster College, New Wilmington, Pennsylvania, where he was an organ student of Raymond Ocock. He also holds a Master of Music degree in Church Music from Northwestern University where he studied organ with Wolfgang Rubsam.
During the past thirty years, he has served as Organist / Director at churches in Chicago and the northwestern suburbs, as well as guest organist for twenty-five churches in the Chicagoland area.
Richard is a member of the Fox Valley chapter of the American Guild of Organists and is employed as a manager in the computer department of the American Agricultural Insurance Company in Schaumburg.
