Alysoun Kegel, Artistic Director
An accomplished conductor, music teacher, and soprano, Alysoun Kegel has been working as the choir director and K-4 music instructor at Worthington Hooker since 2019.
Aly began singing as an 8-yr-old treble in the St. Luke’s Girls Choir of Evanston, Illinois, under the direction of Richard Webster. She began her work in conducting in 2002, as musical director of Yale University’s Whim N’ Rhythm, giving performances in Japan, South Korea, Italy, France and the United Kingdom. From 2007-2011 she served as Artistic Director of the PALS Children’s Chorus in Brookline, MA preparing young people to sing under the batons of Sir Colin Davis, Raphael Frühbeck de Burgos, David Hoose, and Bernard Haitink.
Aly completed her MM in conducting at Carnegie Mellon University, where she studied with Maestro Robert Page. She has led choral workshops throughout the US, as well as in South Korea, Ghana, and Somaliland. She served as the Head of Choral and Vocal Music at Choate Rosemary Hall from 2013-2019, leading the Chamber Chorus on tour in China, South Korea, Norway, and Sweden. Aly was a charter member of the Yale Schola Cantorum, a 24-voice ensemble specializing in early and contemporary music. She worked in the Boston area as staff soprano at Trinity Church in Copley Square and at Church of the Redeemer, Chestnut Hill. She graduated from Yale with a Bachelor of Arts in Music and English, and received her first MM in Dalcroze Studies from the Longy School of Music.
Ethan Haman, Collaborative Pianist
Ethan Haman from the San Francisco Bay Area is the staff accompanist for the Greater New Haven Community Chorus and director of music for the Episcopal Church at Yale. He is also the organist and associate director of music at Noroton Presbyterian Church in Darien, CT, and staff accompanist for the Yale Institute of Sacred Music. He holds MM and MMA degrees in organ performance from Yale, as well as a BM degree in composition and organ performance from the University of Southern California, and has gone on several sponsored study trips to Paris and Lyon for immersion into the French tradition of organ performance and improvisation on historic instruments.
Ethan regularly performs throughout the United States and internationally both as an organ recitalist and in collaboration with various ensembles, and his recitals often feature extensive improvisations. He has performed and recorded in 23 states and 10 countries, including such notable venues as Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco, the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, Trinity Church Wall Street in NYC, Notre Dame d’Auteuil in Paris, and the Grote Kerk of St. Bavo in Haarlem, the Netherlands.
In addition to his performance activities, Ethan teaches improvisation both privately and in workshops for universities as well as local chapters of the American Guild of Organists, and regularly composes new choral and keyboard music. He enjoys recording organ and improvisation videos for his YouTube channel as well as studying foreign languages; he currently speaks English, French, Spanish, European Portuguese, Cantonese, Mandarin Chinese, and is currently learning German and Korean. www.EthanHaman.com
Mahima Kumara, Choral Assistant
Mahima Kumara (she/her) is an MM candidate in Choral Conducting at the Yale School of Music. She graduated from Yale College in 2020 with a BA in Statistics and Data Science and an Education Studies certificate, after which she taught with the Yale Music in Schools Initiative on the Yale Glee Club Service Through Music Fellowship. Mahima grew up in State College, Pennsylvania and returns to New Haven from Boston, where she worked in health policy research at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and conducted with Boston Children’s Chorus and Tactus Ensemble Cambridge. She is also a pianist and Carnatic vocalist, and in all her work, aims to center educational equity and inclusive community music-making. In her free time, Mahima enjoys reading, yoga, and trail running.