About the Director

Conductor Murray Kidd Conductor, Murray Kidd has been entertaining audiences in the Boston area with innovative programming, emotional depth and performance excellence for over fifteen years. He has had a long association with Handel & Haydn Society and Boston Baroque-performing with such conductors as Christopher Hogwood, Sir Roger Norrington, John Finney, Grant Llewellyn, Giselle Ben-Dor, and Martin Pearlman.

Mr. Kidd has taken part in many of the world's most prestigious music festivals including: BBC Proms, Tanglewood, Ravinia, Edinburgh, Krakow's All- Beethoven Easter Festival, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, and Boston Early Music Festival. Most recently he performed with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He studied conducting with Dr. William Dehning at University of the Pacific; he completed his masters degree at New England Conservatory, where he studied Historic Performance Practice with Daniel Pinkham. He currently conducts the Chamber Singers and University Choir and teaches conducting and voice at UMASS Lowell.

On the stage, Mr. Kidd has performed as a soloist with many premiere ensembles including: Boston Baroque, Handel & Haydn Society, Musicians of the Old Post Road, North Shore Philharmonic, Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra, and Coro Allegro. He toured California, performing with Ensemble Abendmusik, in 2007.

Mr. Kidd was recently appointed assistant director of the Wellesly Chamber Music Conference at Wellesley College. He has been a voice instructor in New England for the past 12 years and has studios at New England Conservatory Preparatory School, UMASS/Lowell, and also a very active private studio. He has taught Song Literature, 20th Century Music History, and Vocal Pedagogy for Eastern Nazarene College and UMASS/Lowell.

Mr. Kidd is a member of NATS, ACDA, MENC and Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia.

About the Accompanist

Accompanist Dorothy Travis Accompanist, Dorothy Travis, is active in the Greater Boston musical scene as a music director, accompanist, teacher and performer. She has an extensive background in musical theater direction, having prepared the casts and and orchestras for dozens of productions. Favorites include Into the Woods, for which she received an EMACT award for music direction, Chorus Line, Evita, The Whiz and West Side Story with Theatre II of Melrose; Candide, Aida, and Putting It Together with French Woods Festival for the Performing Arts in the Catskills; Tommy, Lizzy Borden, Honk, and Damn Yankees with the Stoneham Theatre; and Kiss Me Kate and Les Miserables with Brimmer and May High School in Boston. Dorothy recently became involved as a music director for Stoneham Theatre's Kids4Kids program, which brings the inspiration of live theater performed by school age children to schools around the Boston area.

As a board member of the Massachusetts Music Teachers Association, Dorothy chairs the MTNA State Performance Competition at Brandeis University which provides a competition venue for some of the most talented young musicians in Massachusetts.

Dorothy received her Bachelor of Music from the Crane School of Music at SUNY Potsdam, where she studied with James Ball and Delores Johnson. She received her Master of Music with a concentration in Piano Performance and Pedagogy from Northwestern University studying performance with Guy Mombert and Pedagogy with Frances Larimer.

In her private piano studio, Dorothy believes in an eclectic approach for each student, providing a safe environment in which to cultivate each musician. She blends a combination of singing, ensemble work, sight reading, theory, harmony, technique, and repertoire to motivate students of all ages to find their inner muse. Her students have received recognition and awards from the Beethoven Society Scholarship Recital, MMTA Judged Festivals, and Polymnia's own Spotlight on High School Talent.