LHS CHORAL DEPARTMENT
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About the Choral Staff

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Jason Iannuzzi is serving in his eleventh year as Director of Choruses at Lexington High School, where he conducts the LHS Chorale, Chamber Singers, Concert Choir and Madrigal Singers; oversees a large student-directed a cappella program; and serves as Music Director for the spring musical. Mr. Iannuzzi holds a Bachelor of Music degree in Music Education summa cum laude from Westminster Choir College and a Master of Music degree in Conducting from Carnegie Mellon University, where he was a student of Robert Page. An experienced music and drama educator, Mr. Iannuzzi has taught students at the middle, high school and college levels in both public and private school settings for the past twenty years. He has served as Artistic Director for the Murrysville Festival Chorus and interim director for the Blazing Star Chorale, as well Assistant Conductor to the Bucks County Choral Society, leading that ensemble in a concert tour of Germany and the Czech Republic. As Assistant Conductor of the Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh, Mr. Iannuzzi prepared the professional, symphonic chorus for performances with the Pittsburgh Symphony and world-renowned maestros including Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Leonard Slatkin, Mariss Jansons, Yan Pascal Tortelier and the late Richard Hickox.
 
Mr. Iannuzzi also has extensive experience as a director, vocal coach and musical director for opera and musical theater productions. He has served as chorus master and assistant conductor to both Westminster Choir College’s Opera Theatre and Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Music.
 
Under Mr. Iannuzzi's direction, Lexington High School choruses have presented a number of world premieres, the East Coast premiere of Michael Gandolfi's Winter Light, and the first complete high school performance of James Whitbourn's Annelies, and have collaborated with the Lexington and Concord Symphonies, Harvard University Choruses, New England Conservatory Choirs, Boston's Back Bay Chorale and renowned fiddler Eileen Ivers. His choirs have appeared in a number of important Boston-area venues, as well as on tour in Sweden, Finland, Estonia, China, Greece and Bulgaria. Last January, Lexington High School honors choruses appeared in concert at New York’s storied Carnegie Hall.
 
Mr. Iannuzzi is thrilled to be acting as High School Repertoire and Resources Chair for the Eastern Region of the American Choral Directors Association. He has presented at the National Convention for the National Association for Music Education and for the Massachusetts chapter of ACDA, and he has adjudicated honors auditions for Massachusetts Western Senior District Chorus and New Hampshire All-State Chorus. He was a contributor to Teaching Music Through Performance in Middle School Choir and Becoming Musical, both published by GIA. His choirs have appeared three times at the Massachusetts All-State Convention. Mr. Iannuzzi has worked with outstanding high school musicians in Westminster’s High School Conservatory Chorale, Princeton High School’s instrumental music department, and Pittsburgh’s Junior Mendelssohn Choir. He was a 2009 nominee as Pennsylvania’s Educator of the Year. A native of New Hampshire, Mr. Iannuzzi currently resides in Lexington, MA with his wife, Allison (music teacher at Hastings Elementary School) and their three sons--Joshua, Luke and Noah.

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Paul Carlson, accompanist, has dedicated his performance career to presenting concerts with unique programming and dynamic audience lectures. He appears frequently as a solo recitalist and also as a collaborative musician. Freshness characterizes his programs, which strike a careful balance between the familiarity of great music of the standard repertoire, and the exciting discovery of new or neglected works. He performs frequently with the Lexington Symphony (Massachusetts), with whom he has played solo concertos under the batons of Jonathan McPhee, David Hoose, Patrick Botti, and Anthony Princiotti. His interest in engaging programming extends to the Opal Ensemble, with clarinetist Todd Brunel, and violist Anne Black, which presents new and neglected chamber works in a concert series in Arlington and Lexington, Massachusetts.
 
Dr. Carlson’s unique programming includes championing new music and the utilization of visual media. His "Armistice Day" program synchronized The Seige of Tripoli, a 19th-century American "battle piece" by Benjamin Carr with projections of the original programmatic text. He paired Sports et divertissements, a collection of miniatures by Erik Satie, with images of Satie’s verbal texts and the original accompanying art-deco illustrations. Music of living composers also forms an important part of many of his recitals, as in his premiers of works by Boston-area composers Hayg Boyadjian, John McDonald and Marti Epstein. Also a composer, Paul Carlson’s volume of original compositions for organ is available from GIA Publications. His Sicilienne fugitif for oboe and strings was premiered in May of 2012 by the Lexington Symphony Chamber Players.
 
Dedicated to music accessibility and audience engagement, Dr. Carlson often accompanies his recitals with short lectures. He has presented papers at American Musicological Society New England Chapter meetings as well as for local music clubs. The research component of his doctoral work at Boston University focused on the piano performance style of Claude Debussy, including extensive analysis of early sound recordings. In addition to frequent programming of Debussy, he has a special interest in other music originating in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, especially unfairly neglected works. Very much in this vein, he has recorded the First Piano Sonata by Charles Ives and the Preludes by Ruth Crawford Seeger. The CD is available online through all the major outlets.
 
Dr. Carlson received a Bachelor of Music degree from Gordon College, and Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees from Boston University. His teachers include Tong-Il Han, Raymond Hanson, Maria-Clodes Jaguaribe, Boris Berman, Fred Broer, Saul Skersey and Marjorie Richie. He has taught at Gordon College and the Boston University Tanglewood Institute. He has served as organist at Lutheran Church of the Redeemer in Woburn for over twenty years. At present he lives in Westford, Massachusetts, and teaches at the Lexington Music School.

Visit Dr. Carlson's Website
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Susan Larson is in her third year with Lexington Public Schools. She is passionate about teaching voice and believes that anyone can sing. She has experience teaching group voice classes at the elementary through college levels, and has an active private studio. She holds additional certifications in contemporary vocal styles pedagogy through Somatic VoiceworkTM with Jeanie LoVetri. A master teaching artist, Ms. Larson has designed and led year-long choral and opera residencies for The Metropolitan Opera Guild, The Handel and Haydn Society, and Boston Lyric Opera. Ms. Larson has extensive arts integration teaching experience, and advanced training through the National Seminar for Teaching Artists at The Kennedy Center. In 2016, Ms. Larson was invited to participate in the inaugural class of the Music Educator and Teaching Artist (META) Fellowship through the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a two-year program seeking to strengthen youth music pathways in Massachusetts. Following her deep interest in social-emotional learning through the arts, she is currently pursuing a mindfulness certification for music teaching and learning with Frank Diaz of Indiana University's Jacobs School of Music.

​Ms. Larson holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in Voice Performance from the University of Wisconsin, where she studied with the esteemed Julia Faulkner. In the Boston area, she has performed with organizations including Odyssey Opera and Tanglewood Festival Chorus. Ms. Larson was the longtime alto soloist at the Winchester Unitarian Society, and is a frequent soloist for local concert series, orchestras and choruses. She regularly performs in schools throughout Massachusetts, both in customized residencies and in opera masterworks she has adapted specifically for elementary school audiences.
Ms. Larson is a 2018 graduate of the Executive Program in Arts and Culture Strategy at UPenn and National Arts Strategies. She is a board member with the Arlington Cultural Council, and has served on grants panels for the Massachusetts Cultural Council. In her tenure as an Education Specialist for the Yamaha Corporation of America, Ms. Larson trained and mentored developing educators throughout the US, and produced training and outreach materials. She is the former administrator of the education program for The Cantata Singers in Boston, pairing teams of teaching artists with urban classrooms to create original student-composed song cycles. Susan and her husband, Jim, live in Arlington and have two daughters. 

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  • Home
  • About
  • ENSEMBLES
    • LHS Chorale
    • Concert Choir
    • Madrigal Singers
    • Chamber Singers
    • A Cappella
  • CALENDAR
  • EVENTS
  • STAFF
  • CONTACT
  • RESOURCES
    • AUDITIONS
    • SYLLABI
    • MEDIA
    • LEXINGTON PERFORMING ARTS DEPARTMENT