Final concert for three longtime Chorale members

This weekend’s concerts by the Northwest Sacred Music Chorale will be the last for three 15-year veterans of the group: Marietta Hardy, Dr. Lee Coppess and Gaynell Coppess.

The concerts take place tonight at 7 and Saturday at 4 p.m. at Trinity Lutheran Church in Coeur d’Alene. Conducted by Stan McDaniel, they are the last of the Chorale’s 2015-16 season and feature “The Creation” by Josef Haydn and “A New Creation” by Rene Clausen.

MARIETTA HARDY, pianist and organist, has been the accompanist for the Northwest Sacred Music Chorale since she was first called to that position in 2001 by Cynthia Marlette, the founder and artistic director/conductor of the Chorale. Hardy is a 1989 graduate of Brigham Young University where she majored in organ pedagogy. She established the Hardy Music Studio in Post Falls where she teaches privately, and she has also taught for a number of years for the North Idaho College Department of Music.

Hardy has many fond memories of her 15 years with the NWSMC. She loved playing the two-piano version of Brahms’ A German Requiem in the spring of 2005, the Bernstein Chichester Psalms in the spring of 2007, Vivaldi’s Gloria in 2008, and the Fitzmartin Concert Mass in 2011 to name only a few.

Hardy especially enjoyed working with Jackson and Almeda Berkey of Mannheim Steamroller fame when the Chorale performed the Berkey’s cantata, “Come, Follow Me!” in the spring of 2009. Two days prior to the concert, Jackson told Hardy she had been practicing the wrong organ score. Almeda’s score was copied that evening for Hardy to use, but she had only two days in which to learn a more difficult organ arrangement. It was a growing experience.

“The Northwest Sacred Music Chorale fills a need for sacred music in the Northwest, and I am confident that the conductor, Stan McDaniel, will lead them in the direction they need to go,” Hardy said. “He is wonderful to work with. I would love to perform with the Chorale again sometime in the future.”

DR. LEE COPPESS, former president of the board of directors of the Northwest Sacred Music Chorale from 2003 to 2007, served in that position the longest of any president to date. Coppess is the individual who, in Cynthia Marlette’s words, “would later spend countless hours over the next year and a half procuring the Chorale’s nonprofit status.”

Coppess met Marlette when she conducted a massed choir from many Lutheran Churches in the Coeur d’Alene area for an evening concert at Trinity Lutheran Church. He was impressed by her musical skills, and asked her to conduct a small ensemble from Spokane that he had put together to record stock arrangements of all the Alfred Burt carols. The result was a CD entitled, “An Inland Northwest Christmas,” which later was sold online and in many music stores in the region. When Marlette decided to try to form a chorale in the Coeur d’Alene area, Coppess and his wife, Gaynell, were two of the people Marlette called together to discuss putting her plan into action. A board of directors was formed, a name for the chorale was chosen, and Coppess was asked to be a part of that board, eventually becoming president after the first president, Travis Jones, resigned to take on another job.

Coppess is a 1965 graduate of the Ohio State University College of Dentistry. He retired from clinical practice in 2002 after nearly 40 years as a dentist in the Air Force and serving his patients in the Coeur d’Alene community. He currently works as a forensic dentist (odontologist) for the U.S. government during mass disasters, having been based in St. Gabriel, La., after hurricane, Katrina. Coppess also is a forensic dental consultant for the coroners’ offices of Kootenai, Bonner and Spokane counties. He is a member of Region 10 DMORT and the Academy of Forensic Sciences.

As a musician Coppess grew up playing piano and trumpet. In college at OSU, he became part of the Ohio State Marching Band his freshman year. Once in Coeur d’Alene, however, he was enticed to try singing, and he was coaxed into joining the NIC Community Choir under the direction of Rick Frost. As his love of choral music grew, Lee auditioned for and sang in the Spokane Symphony Chorale for well over a decade. It was there that he met his wife, Gaynell. Together they also sang in the Bach Festival Choir at St. John’s Cathedral for many years. The couple also sang in the Spokane Chamber Choir under the direction of Dr. Ed Schaeffer.

Coppess said he is very impressed by the beautiful voices that Stan McDaniel has brought to the NWSMC. Having sung under McDaniel’s direction this season, Coppess said he knows the conductor will carry on the torch of keeping the dream of the Northwest Sacred Music Chorale alive and well for years to come.

GAYNELL COPPESS is currently the assistant conductor of the Northwest Sacred Music Chorale and the founder and artistic director/conductor of Chorale ensemble. With her husband, Gaynell was involved in the formation of the Chorale. She took on the job of executive director in 2003. Gaynell was hired as assistant conductor in 2006. The following year, the Ensemble of the NWSMC was born, singing for the first time as an entity of the NWSMC organization on its spring concert under Gaynell’s direction. Eventually she would resign as executive director in order to meet the demands of conducting.

The Ensemble performed throughout the community, singing the National Anthem at games, performing for more than seven seasons at Art On the Green, singing at the $5,000 Donor Opening Gala of the Kroc Center, performing at Art From the Heart, singing in The Cathedral of Our Lady of Lourdes in Spokane, and doing three separate all-ensemble concerts at First Presbyterian Church in Coeur d’Alene, as well as performing regularly on NWSMC concerts. At the close of the 2009-2010 Season, John Lemke, conductor of the NWSMC took a leave of absence, and Gaynell stepped in as acting artistic director/conductor of the NWSMC for the 2010-2011 Season. It was a year of work and joy. Gaynell conducted two major works, one of which she knew well, Camille Saint-Saens’ Christmas Oratorio. She was then conducted three performances of Durufle’s Requiem. Shortly after that time the NWSMC nominated her for the Mayor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts. It is a time she will never forget — both for the hard work — and for the nomination.

Gaynell is a 1970 graduate of Eastern Washington University and finished her master’s degree in voice performance under Boston Opera baritone, John DeMerchant while at Central Washington University in Ellensburg. She said she looks forward to working with her voice students, conducting her church choir at St. Mark’s Lutheran, golfing with her friends, taking more voice lessons from Patricia Blankenship Mortier in Spokane, spending more time at the gym, watching her 11 beautiful grandchildren grow up and explore their own talents while participating in so many different sports, gardening, sorting through music, and spending time traveling and golfing with her husband, Lee.

Like her husband, Gaynell spoke highly of conductor McDaniel.

“The NWSMC is privileged to have him as their leader, and it couldn’t be in better hands,” she said.