About Us

WHO WE ARE

Join Southern Oregon Repertory Singers as they celebrate four decades of providing the highest quality choral music to the Rogue Valley. Our 70+ voice ensemble is comprised of volunteer and paid singers, many of whom are professional performers and/or music educators. Under the direction of Dr. Paul French, retired Director of Choral Studies at Southern Oregon University, the chorus has gained national recognition from some of the most renowned conductors and soloists in the United States. We invite you to join us and to attend a performance, hear a premiere of a newly commissioned piece of choral music, and begin your newfound or renewed love affair with choral music.

Music Director

Dr. Paul French, Music Director, is Professor Emeritus of Vocal Studies at Southern Oregon University where he taught for 34 years. In recent years to much acclaim, Dr. Paul French and Southern Oregon Repertory Singers have brought world-class performances to audiences in the Rogue Valley in their annual series of concerts. Highlights of the series have been beloved choral masterworks, from the baroque period to the 20th Century, as well as showcasing new music from living composers.

Dr. Paul French’s practiced hands have also guided preeminent musical organizations including Rogue Valley Symphony, Rogue Opera, Jefferson Baroque Orchestra, and the Northwest Bach Festival. He was Chorus Master for the 2015 opening of the Britt Classical Festival with the stirringly epic “Carmina Burana,” as well as “Messiah” with Rogue Valley Symphony. Dr. Paul French also directs the choir at Trinity Episcopal Church in Ashland, which is regarded among the top tier choirs in Oregon for liturgical music.

Equipped with extensive professional experience as a singer, conductor, and educator, Dr. Paul French has led ensembles to noteworthy acclaim at prestigious six-state conventions, such as the American Choral Directors Association Northwest Convention (1994, 2002), the American Guild of Organists Northwest Convention (1997), and the Oregon Music Educators National Conference (2002, 2007).

Prominent artists and composers, including internationally renowned soprano, Julianne Baird, and revered composer, Morten Lauridsen, have praised Dr. Paul French and his ensembles for their “beautiful and inspiring” and “brilliant and superb” performances. Willene Gunn, Director Emerita of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music Opera Program, awarded further praise for the Southern Oregon Repertory Singers’ West Coast Premier of Mozart’s “Mass in C Minor,” a performance she described as “measuring up to anything I have heard in any concert hall anywhere.”

Accompanist & Composer-in-Residence

Born with an intrinsic fascination with sound and pitch, Jodi French has always found music to be both a joyful game and a thrilling challenge. By the age of three, her desire to play led her to the piano, the instrument she is most known for playing today. While her natural talents have earned her a proficiency with many instruments, she has always felt the piano to be the most apt for sharing emotion and telling stories.

While her mother taught her to read music, this was not enough for the young Jodi. Through her own insistence, she became equally adept at playing by ear as she challenged herself to play everything she heard in every possible key. This drive to continually challenge herself eventually gave her the skills to work as an accompanist when she was only ten years old. Later in life, Ms. French was privileged to study piano performance with Dr. Alexander Tutunov at Southern Oregon University. She continues to be deeply involved with the Music Department at Southern Oregon University as staff accompanist and informal coach, and by teaching piano class for beginners, one of her favorite activities.

Ms. French has given numerous solo performances, played recitals and concertos with other musical organizations in Southern Oregon, and  has had several of her sacred works published. Her original compositions have regularly been featured in the James M. Collier New Works Festival. Ms. French also serves as organist at Trinity Episcopal Church in Ashland.

Our Ensemble

The seventy-voice Southern Oregon Repertory Singers ensemble celebrates its 39th season of bringing choral excellence to the Rogue Valley. Under the direction of Dr. Paul French, Professor Emeritus of Choral Studies at Southern Oregon University, the semi-professional ensemble captivates audiences by presenting the best of classical choral literature from around the world throughout the ages, as well as newly composed works by world-renowned composers, such as Gabriel Jackson, Eric Whitacre, and Ēriks Ešenvalds. Southern Oregon Repertory Singers have also had the honor to premiere new works by Jodi French and Craig Kingsbury.

Southern Oregon Repertory Singers offers opportunities to local and regional musicians, including professionals and music educators, as well as access to a wide variety of repertoire, while providing cultural enrichment to the Rogue Valley through presentations of a series of unique concerts.

Southern Oregon Repertory Singers proudly presents at least one choral masterwork every year in their season. Recent masterworks include Fauré’s Requiem, Bach’s St. Matthew Passion and Mass in B Minor, Haydn’s Creation, and Handel’s Messiah, performed with the Rogue Valley Symphony.

Our Ensemble

The seventy-voice Southern Oregon Repertory Singers ensemble celebrates its 39th season of bringing choral excellence to the Rogue Valley. Under the direction of Dr. Paul French, Professor Emeritus of Choral Studies at Southern Oregon University, the semi-professional ensemble captivates audiences by presenting the best of classical choral literature from around the world throughout the ages, as well as newly composed works by world-renowned composers, such as Gabriel Jackson, Eric Whitacre, and Ēriks Ešenvalds. Southern Oregon Repertory Singers have also had the honor to premiere new works by Jodi French and Craig Kingsbury.

Southern Oregon Repertory Singers offers opportunities to local and regional musicians, including professionals and music educators, as well as access to a wide variety of repertoire, while providing cultural enrichment to the Rogue Valley through presentations of a series of unique concerts.

Southern Oregon Repertory Singers proudly presents at least one choral masterwork every year in their season. Recent masterworks include Fauré’s Requiem, Bach’s St. Matthew Passion and Mass in B Minor, Haydn’s Creation, and Handel’s Messiah, performed with the Rogue Valley Symphony.

Southern Oregon Repertory Singers have also released many CDs, including In Time of Softest Snow, On the Trail of Beauty, The Heart’s Reflection, and First Light 2018, First Light 2019, and She Walks in Beauty.