3 Divas & a Harp Concert

The concert will be held on Sunday, Feb 28 at 4pm

Bios 

LORRAINE MURPHY, soprano, holds degrees from Goshen College (IN) and Shippensburg University (PA). She has taught and sung in Nigeria and has been soprano soloist on tours to the former Soviet Union, Poland, Germany, Ireland, France, Scotland, and England. She has sung twelve principal roles with the Lancaster and Harrisburg Civic Opera Companies and has performed with orchestras in New Hampshire , Arizona , Pennsylvania , and Florida . Lorraine has also appeared as “Golde” in Fiddler on the Roof in Israel and locally as “Mother” in Amal and the Night Visitors, as well as the soprano solos in both Mozart and Verdi Requiems at the Varna , Bulgaria International Music Frestival. Here in Sarasota Lorraine sings with Gloria Musicae and is the soprano section leader for Key Chorale.  She is currently the Director of Music and Adult Ministries at St. John’s United Methodist Church and maintains an active voice and piano studio.

A Lyric-Coloratura Soprano, JEANETTE LAVOY’S vocal repertoire includes more than 80 roles in Grand Opera and Musical Theatre.  She performed at the Mozarteum in Salzburg and in a series of concerts in London . A former vocal soloist of the US Navy Band in Washington, D.C., Jeanette has toured, made recordings, and sang for Presidents of the U.S. as well as New York City’s mayor, Rudolph Guilliani. An accomplished Oratorio singer, LaVoy sang the soprano role in Handel’s Messiah with the Sarasota Chorale Society, plus the Faure’s Requiem, which was televised from the Church of the Palms.  Jeanette is also well known for leading roles in Jacques Brel, The Merry Widow, A Little Night Music, After the Fair, and The Price of Fame, portraying operetta legend, Jeanette MacDonald.  Jeanette garnered excellent reviews for her zany interpretation of Naughty Marietta and for her work with the Sarasota Orchestra, Sarasota Concert Band, the Sarasota Pops Orchestra, the American Brass, Jacobites Pipe and Drum Band, and the Sarasota Opera. As a voice teacher, she coached the “Von Trapp Children” (great grandchildren of George and Maria) before their world tour. Jeanette holds a degree in Theatre Directing and is the author-composer of eight children’s musical theatre pieces; four of which have been produced. Presently Ms. LaVoy directs the Adult Choir at Incarnation R.C. Church in Sarasota and maintains a vocal studio.

      Three Divas introduce Mezzo Soprano, AMY CONNOURS. Miss Connours holds a B.A. in Music from FSU, and plays viola. A business partner with husband, Doug, the mother of two has served as Music Minister at the Buffalo , MN Assembly of God, and is Music Director at Meadowland Worship Center in Sarasota . An accomplished Oratorio singer, Amy has sung Messiah with the Sarasota choral Society since 2007. She's performing Mendelssohn’s Elijah at St. Joseph ’s Church, Bradenton , in December. She has sung Mozart’s The Magic Flute, and numerous solo gigs. A member of The Florida Voices, Amy is currently serving as their president.

Harpist, BONNIE CAPLAN, is a native “Cornhusker,” who received her Bachelors Degree from the University of Nebraska , and did advanced studies at the University of Maryland as well as Baltimore ’s Peabody Conservatory. Her teachers have included Joseph Vito of the Chicago Symphony, the distinguished harpist, teacher, and friend, Jill Bailiff-Reyes-Lambert, as well as many contemporary harpists. Bonnie has held positions with orchestras in Nebraska , Maryland , and the Washington D.C/Baltimore area, as well as in Florida . She has worked on stage in orchestras backing up such artists as Marvin Hamlisch, Richard Chamberlain, Barry Manilow, Johnny Mathis, Steve Lawrence & Eydie Gorme, Brian Wilson, Michael Bolton, The Manhattan Transfer, Peter Cetera, and Bernadette Peters. Besides being well known for her recitals along Florida 's West Coast, she has also been a member of the Fl. West Coast Symphony, Sarasota Opera Orchestra, and the Sarasota Pops, as well as many other choral and instrumental groups. Bonnie has also been featured as guest solo artist with the Sarasota Pops Orchestra, Sarasota Concert Band, and the Suncoast Chorale. Presently you may hear Bonnie perform as the resident harpist at the Ritz-Carlton, Sarasota for Afternoon Tea. Her solo performances in the area have become almost a prerequisite for any successful business reception or social occasion. 

          Maestro JOHN VISSER is our new musical director and accompanist, who began his career conducting the Turnau Opera Company, which became the Asolo Opera, now the Sarasota Opera. Once in Sarasota , John began a 35-year association with Robert Ennis Turoff of the Golden Apple Dinner Theatre which continues to this day.  John became the favorite music director of Richard Harris and Robert Goulet in national productions of Camelot which led to his Broadway debut when Camlet, to now starring Goulet, landed at the Gershwin Theatre. Mr. Goulet appointed Visser his exclusive Musical Director and Conductor of national tours. Back to Sarasota and the Golden Apple, John was soon en route to Singapore for productions of The Music Man, South Pacific and Amahl and the Night Visitors.

For further information please contact:

THE SOUND OF ELEGANCE

Phone:  941-923-5727    Fax: 941-924-5855     E-Mail: srqharpist@aol.com

In the 20 years since he founded Lamb of God Lutheran Church in Haines City , Pastor Mark Bernthal had many opportunities to move. His response to offers was so automatic, he didn’t even have to deliver it himself. “Anytime I’d been asked, I said no in the same conversation.  It got the point that the Bishop’s office would answer no for me,” he said. “I was happy and fulfilled where I was.”

A native of Winter Haven and the son and grandson of Lutheran pastors, Bernthal had deep roots in central Florida . He went to Haines City as a mission developer in 1989, founded the church in 1991 with 120 members, and had shepherded it to a congregation of more than 500. They were planning to build a new church.

His wife, Cyndi, had a longstanding career as a trauma nurse in the Lakeland Regional Hospital . Haines City and Lamb of God were the only home his five children had known.

“I always knew the day would come to move on,” he said. “But it was always sometime in the future.

The seeds of a new direction were sown when he met former St. Armands Lutheran Church Pastor Eric Wogen at a wedding at the church in 1996. “He was delightful. He invited my wife and me to stay in the Parrish House,” Bernthal said.

He and his wife were both taken with the church, particularly the tranquil beauty of the Mediation Garden . They agreed that this would be the kind of place they would like to be someday.

“St Armands has a wonderful reputation in the synod,” he said. “Everywhere I go someone knows someone from St. Armands who is on a synod board or commission.

“Dad knew (former St. Armands) Pastor Zimmer. It seemed the Lord was opening a door wider and wider.”

That door had not always been open. Bernthal went to Valparaiso University in Indiana with plans to study social work.

Just out of curiosity, he took one theology course. “Some things you come by naturally because you’ve lived it,” he said.

The door began to open. “Students asked questions. They challenged what they were being taught. Dad said, ‘You’re not in Sunday school anymore.’ He encouraged me to open up to the world of Biblical interpretation.”

He was still committed to social work, but decided to go to one year of seminary. “Otherwise I would never know if I had made the right choice. God had me right where he wanted me.”

After attending Christ Seminary in St. Louis , Mo. , he went on to earn a master of divinity degree from Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary in Columbia , S.C.

The Bishop’s office knew he would be a good fit for St. Armands when they began searching for a successor to Pastor Wogen. Even though they assumed he would not be interested, they informed him of the opening. He decided to consider it.

“Then I met the call committee,” he said. “I haven’t felt that excited for many years. I know the feeling was mutual.”

Apparently he was right. After a search that lasted nearly a year, the congregation unanimously accepted his appointment on June 28. He will begin his duties at St. Armands on Sept. 1 and conduct his first services Sept. 6. He will be formally inducted as senior pastor on Oct. 18.   

“It has been a strange, invigorating experience,” he said. “There is a challenge in leaving your comfort zone. Change is difficult, even though we experience it every time we look in the mirror.” 

He may be in a new setting, but he rests on a solid foundation of family legacy. His proudest possession is prayer carved in table-sized wooden wall plaque given to his father, August, in 1951 by a parishioner who spent 195 hours carving it. The plaque will have the place of honor in his new office.

The plaque fell off the wall sometime in the 1960s and cracked. “People would offer to fix it all the time,” Bernthal said. “Dad never wanted it fixed. He said it is a reminder of the imperfection of everything but God.”

The inscription on the plaque is this:

A Pastor’s Prayer

I do not ask that crowds may throng the temple, 

That standing room be at a price.

I only ask that as I voice the message,

They may see Christ.

I do not ask for churchly pomp or pageant,

Or music such as wealth alone can buy.

I only ask that as I voice the message,

He may be nigh.

I do not ask that men may sound my praises,

Or headlines spread my name abroad.

I only pray that as I voice the message,

Hearts may find God.

I do not ask for earthly place or laurel,

Of this world’s distinction any part.

I only ask that I may voice the message

Of my Savior’s heart.

When asked what his plans are for St. Armands, Pastor Bernthal gently points out that his job is not to impose his plans, but to discover what God’s plans are. “It’s not about us. It’s all about God and proclaiming the good news,” he said.

“The most important thing is to listen and learn from the congregation, to see what gifts we all bring. We will discover what those are together. We will figure out what God’s agenda is.”

Of course his approach will be informed by what he has been about for 23 years in Haines city. “I put a premium on joy and celebration,” he said. “We are welcoming and hospitable to visitors, much like St. Armands.

“ Florida churches are seasonal,” he said. “They have a neat rhythm. They are large and active in season and small and intimate in the summer. At Lamb of God we have fun with that.”           

So even though he was physically in one place for a long time, he is very comfortable with change as an essential part of spiritual growth.

“I don’t view the Reformation as a one-time event,” he said. “The church needs to be renewing itself continuously.”