About

When Sister Anne invited Joan Bell, the second grader, to join the choir at St. Finn Barr she could not have known that she was introducing Joan to a life-long love. Joan sang in choir throughout high school and college. After college Joan has sung with the UC Alumni Chorus, the Oakland Symphony Chorus, and Voci Women’s Vocal Ensemble. Joan currently sings and is soprano section leader with Sacred and Profane. Joan is also happily involved with the music ministry at St. Mary Magdalen where she sings, plays the piano, and helps lead the children’s choir, closing the loop that Sister Anne started all those years ago.

Elizabeth Brashers is Assistant Vice Chancellor and Chief of Staff in office of the Vice Chancellor for Research at UC Berkeley, where she solves problems and drives strategic initiatives to enable research campuswide. Elizabeth previously sang with Voci Women’s Vocal Ensemble, and in her younger days sang with the San Francisco Girls Chorus, and sang with/directed Yale’s oldest all-women’s a cappella group, The New Blue. On the weekends Elizabeth and her husband are restoring an 1800s homestead in Mendocino County.

Ayyana Chakravartula has sung with ensembles from East (Princeton Chapel Choir), to South (Symphony Chorus of New Orleans), to far West (Windward Choral Society on Oahu), to home, here in the Bay Area. She is delighted to be singing with Vox Alta. An engineer by day, she spends the rest of her time with her husband and three kids.

Anne Hege loves to sing and is thrilled to have the chance to work with Vox Alta. In her work as a composer, vocalist, conductor, instrument builder, and scholar, she explores the roots of musicality in the intersection of ensemble interaction, technology, embodiment, and expression. Her compositions have been performed by groups including So Percussion, New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, Princeton Laptop Orchestra, Stanford Laptop Orchestra, loadbang, and Volti SF. Hege has received awards and grants, including a New Music USA Project Grant, Mark Nelson Fellowship, Composer in Residence (Resound Ensemble), Visiting Artist (CCRMA, Stanford University), Elizabeth Mills Crothers Prize, and Bay Area Pilot Project Grant. She recently premiered her first opera, The Furies, for laptop orchestra and live vocalists at CCRMA, Stanford. As a day job, she is the artistic director of the Peninsula Women’s Chorus and mother of three.

Li-Wen Monk is a conductor, pianist, and music teacher based in the East Bay. She has enjoyed directing, accompanying, and singing in choirs for over 30 years. Li-Wen received her training at UC Berkeley and Mannes College of Music and currently serves as Director of Worship and Communications at First Presbyterian Church of Berkeley.

Kate Offer is the Music & Movement Specialist for the Pacific Primary School, a preschool in San Francisco. She holds a master’s degree in Music Education as well as a fellowship in songleading from Virginia Theological Seminary where she trained with Ysaye Barnwell of Sweet Honey in the Rock and composer Alice Parker. She grew up singing with the Piedmont East Bay Children’s Choir, and has gone on to sing with a number of local organizations including the San Francisco Symphony, Cappella SF, Oakland Opera Theater, West Edge Opera, and the Oakland Symphony. She was a founding member of the International Orange Chorale where she met her husband, Seth Arnopole. As her alter ego, Kate Offer, Very Melodramatic Soprano, Kate performs a comic recital titled “Aria Kidding” at venues throughout the Bay Area. She also runs Songs from the Sandbox, a YouTube channel of sing-along songs for children and families.

Kathy Walrath used to play piano semi-professionally, but she abandoned keyboards for her true love, singing. Other loves include writing, knitting, dogs, and her funny, talented family. As a teenager she lived in Napoli and studied music theory in Italian, which she doesn’t really speak, yet she still remembers La musica è l’arte del suono…

Edna Yeh is a composer, conductor, and singer. She is a 2021 winner of the HerVoice competition sponsored by Chicago a cappella and the Kansas City Chorale, and is an active composer in the Project:Encore catalog. Recent commissions include works for Voci Women’s Vocal Ensemble and Sacred and Profane Chamber Chorus. Edna is the founder and artistic director of Vox Alta, assistant conductor of Sacred & Profane Chamber Chorus, and music director of The Dulcet Four. She also founded and directed Concentus Women’s Chorus (Rochester, New York) and Pacific Women’s Chorus (San Diego, California), and previously served as assistant conductor and guest conductor of Voci Women’s Vocal Ensemble.