The Tradition Continues!
The Choral Guild of Atlanta (CGA) is very pleased to announce that rehearsals are resuming this fall for the 2022-2023 Season!
Our New Director
As we return, the Choral Guild is thrilled to welcome Mary Hoffman as the new Conductor and Music Director for the Choral Guild of Atlanta. Mary has served as the Director of Music Ministries at Peachtree Presbyterian Church since 2008, where she conducts the Chancel Choir, Chamber Chorale and Youth Choir. She has conducted various masterworks with the Peachtree Choirs including the Mozart and Fauré Requiems, Haydn’s The Creation, Mendelssohn’s Elijah and the Bach Magnificat. Mary was Peachtree’s Children’s Music director from 1998 to 2008.
Mary Hoffman founded the annual Peachtree Summer Pops Concert in 2009, to feature talented young musicians around the region. She participated in recent commissions of choral music by composers such as Simon Johnson, Michael Kurth and Stephen Newby. Peachtree’s Music Ministry hosted the southeast premieres of Montage for Martin by Dr. Stephen Newby (2020), JFK: Rise, Fall and Immortality by Kurt Bestor (2013), and the Magnificat (2015) and Tenebrae (2017) by Atlanta composer Michael Kurth.
As a singer, Mary has sung with the Chicago Symphony Chorus, the Atlanta Master Chorale, the U.S. Army Ground Forces Band, and the Kings Singers’ Summer Institute in Cambridge, England. As an educator prior to coming to Peachtree Presbyterian, Mary taught music in the public schools of Georgia, Colorado and Illinois. Mary has served as president of both the Kodaly Educators of Georgia and of the Atlanta Choristers Guild. She has coached high school musical performances for several Atlanta area high schools. She holds an undergraduate degree in Music Education/Voice from Illinois Wesleyan University, and earned her Master’s degree in Sacred Music/Choral Conducting from Emory University, where she studied with Dr. Eric Nelson.
We are thrilled that Dr. Wooyoung Kwon will continue as the accompanist for the Choral Guild of Atlanta. We have all appreciated her talents over almost 20 years with the Guild. In addition, she has been serving as an organist & pianist at churches in Atlanta area since 1994. She received her Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Piano Performance with a minor in Organ Performance from the Hugh Hodgson School of Music at the University of Georgia.
Dr. Kwon has been teaching piano, composition, and serving as an accompanist at Agnes Scott College since 2002 performing recitals both as a soloist and as a collaborative artist.
She has received the John Henry Dorminy Piano Scholarship and the University of Georgia School of Music Concerto Competition Award. Dr. Kwon is a member of the American Guild of Organists (AGO) and holds her AGO Associate certificate.
**Watch this space for more announcements coming soon about Auditions and Rehearsals, as well as a pre-season social gathering to meet our new Director.