Dean has been singing with the chorale for about eleven years. He also serves as the president of the chorale’s board, taking care of everything from managing the online ticketing system and printing our programs, tickets, flyers, and mailers to keeping an eye on our budget and coordinating with Artistic Director Eliza Rubenstein. By day, he’s the director of client services for The Ryan Group, which provides marketing and sales support for food companies.
Dean has quite an extensive and varied musical background. “My mom insisted on piano as a first instrument, but I never could get my left hand to be very helpful,” he says. So he took up guitar and trumpet in the third grade and played in the school orchestra. He also sang folk songs with his brother through middle school, keeping up his trumpet skills the whole time. By the time he got to college he was practicing baroque trumpet in his fraternity house, something he enjoyed, although he says he imagines he can’t say the same for the brothers.
Singing in the chorale is important to Dean because he appreciates the challenge and learning opportunities it presents. “But I also love the feeling of peace that embraces the audience and singers during and after each performance. I think we make the world a little more civilized with each rehearsal and performance,” he says. His favorite performance so far was the Brahms Requiem in the 2009-2010 season.
Something Dean hasn’t revealed to the rest of his fellow singers before is his water polo-playing past. He played the sport in high school and college, then switched to rugby in his junior year. “I couldn’t keep up on my studies with the water polo schedule, so I switched to a less demanding sport, rugby,” he says. Define “less demanding,” Dean! He ended up playing rugby for three college seasons, then played a year of club rugby in Ohio after graduation.
Dean has kept up an active lifestyle. When he’s not singing with us, he’s sailing or riding his bicycle. He’s also a family man and enjoys spending time with his wife at home, going to church, watching his son do improv, and “cheering for my adult daughters in each endeavor,” he adds.
There are several things that keep Dean coming back to the chorale year after year. “With something like 400 rehearsals under my belt, I can say for sure I’ve learned something every time. Eliza is a great teacher and very encouraging,” he says. “The quality of our sound as a group is the thing I appreciate most.”
Other than recordings of the Long Beach Chorale’s performances, all of which he keeps on his iPod, Dean likes to listen to classical music, jazz, anything Paul Desmond ever played, classical guitar (especially Segovia and Parkening), and folk music.
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