| Back | Home |
Many of our member choruses reach out to a consultant for help with an artistic or administrative challenge from time to time. There are several individuals within the GLBT chorus movement here in the U.S. who offer these types of consulting services. Included below are individuals who have worked with GALA Choruses for many years that we feel confident recommending to our member choruses. The details of any services to be provided and fees would be worked out between the member chorus and the consultant. Please contact us at info@galachoruses.org if you have a consulting project for which you would like to consider one of these individuals.
Jane Ramseyer Miller
For over 20 years, Jane Ramseyer Miller has conducted community choirs and served as an organizer and activist across North America. She has conducted and coached many choruses including mixed, women's, men's, youth and transgender choirs. She currently serves as Artistic and Executive Director of One Voice Mixed Chorus, Minnesota's GLBTA Chorus, where her primary focus is creative programming, community outreach and choral collaborations. She holds Masters of Music in Choral Conducting from the University of Minnesota and a BA in Psychology from the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. As a consultant she specializes in
Ramseyer Miller has created choral music with the Minnesota Philharmonic Orchestra, 15-Head Theater Lab, The Women's Cancer Resource Center, Kate Clinton, Shakopee Women's Correctional Facility, In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre, Kairos Dance Theatre, Mu Daiko, and Teens Rock the Mic among others. She currently serves as a board member for GALA Choruses, and in 2008 she received the GALA Choruses Legacy Award.
Dennis Coleman
Dennis Coleman has led Seattle Men's Chorus to a position of prominence as the largest community chorus (in audience and budget size) in the United States. Since 1980, Dennis has led the chorus in performance in many of the world's most prestigious halls including New York's Carnegie Hall, Amsterdam's Concertgebuow, Barcelona's Palau de Musica Catalon, Boston's Symphony Hall, Minneapolis's Orchestra Hall, Dallas' Meyerson Center and San Francisco's Davies Hall. Coleman served for six years on the national Board of Directors of Chorus America and has served two terms on the international Board of Directors of GALA Choruses. He has commissioned and conducted the premieres of new music from Gian Carlo Menotti, John Corigliano, William Hawley, David Diamond, Robert Moran and others. He has conducted concerts with Tatiana Troyanos, Lili Tomlin, Bobby McFerrin, Rosemary Clooney, Diane Schuur, Megan Mulally and others. He is also active as a clinician and guest conductor. Dennis conducts choral singing workshops where he works with a chorus on their repertoire, teaching the basics of good choral tone, diction, support, etc. Dennis can also meet with Boards about general chorus growth and management.
Steven F. Smith
Steven F. Smith has served as Executive Director of the Boston Gay Men's Chorus since 1995, leading the organization through many stages of growth and success. As a consultant, he has worked with many small non profits and his expertise includes strategic planning and issues of branding, marketing and external relations. He focuses on understanding and building upon an organization's core values and on finding and sharpening sustainable competitive advantages, grounded by a grassroots knowledge of the limitations of capacity and energy in small nonprofits. Steve has served as an arts administrator for 25 years, working for presenters, agents, and universities. He has a degree in Arts Management from Baldwin-Wallace College and was selected by the Massachusetts Cultural Council to participate in the "Achieving Excellence" Executive Leadership Program for nonprofit cultural organizations at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. He is a board member of GALA Choruses and past chair of the Greater Boston Choral Consortium, a cooperative association of more than 70 area choruses.
John C. Quillin
John C. Quillin has over 25 years of non-profit management experience. Professionally, he served as Director of Membership and Major Giving at WFAE, the NPR affiliate in Charlotte, NC, where he raised over $1 million per year from individual donors. Over two years, he increased individual giving to the station over 50%. He also is the former Director of Campaign Operations with United Way of Central Carolinas where he oversaw one of the fastest growing workplace campaigns in the country, raising over $35 million per year. He also served as Director of Allocations for UWCC, supervising the distribution of all funding to member and non-member agencies. He is currently the chief financial officer for Fluent Language Solutions, the largest interpreting and translating agency in the southeast. He is the managing artistic director for the Gay Men's Chorus of Charlotte, and the former artistic director of One Voice (Charlotte).
As a volunteer, John has served on the board of directors of GALA Choruses, the Charlotte Lesbian & Gay Fund, Afro-American Cultural Center, Pride Charlotte, Hope Haven (which provides housing and other services to individuals and families in recovery from substance abuse), the North Carolina HIV/AIDS Grants Committee, and with other organizations in North Carolina stretching back 25 years.
John specializes fundraising systems, individual giving, corporate giving, and foundation grant-seeking. He is fond of saying, "If we can raise money for lesbians and gay men in North Carolina, we can do it anywhere."