Carlton Monroe – Artistic Director
Dr. Carlton Monroe is the Director of Music at St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Terrace
Park, Ohio, where, in addition to leading an active choral program for children and
adults, he established and conducts the Bach Ensemble, a professional ensemble of
instrumentalists and vocalists who perform services, concerts, and educational retreats centered on the music of J. S. Bach.
As a conductor and music educator, he has taught at every level from elementary to college,
including positions at Ursuline Academy and Walnut Hills High School in Cincinnati, Miami
University (OH), and Georgia College & State University. He received his Doctor of Musical Arts
Arts from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. He has previously
served on the boards of the Cincinnati Choral Consortium and was a regional chair with the
Association of Anglican Musicians. He serves on the boards of the Burden Foundation in
Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the Cincinnati Country Day School, and The Children’s Theater of
Cincinnati. He lives in Cincinnati with his wife, Jennifer, contrabassoonist with the Cincinnati
Symphony Orchestra.
Scott Seward – Executive Director
Scott Seward returned to his native Cincinnati in 2023 after 21 years in California, where he was director of marketing, education and community relations for the Carmel Bach Festival and, before that, director of communications and marketing for the Northern California Golf Association, and editor and publisher of NCGA Golf magazine.
He is a graduate of the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and Xavier University (Master Education). Scott plays trumpet professionally, and performs with and is president of the board of the River’s Edge Brass Band. He also is the director of development for Jazz Vivace, a nonprofit organization dedicated to presenting performances by internationally recognized jazz artists in Cincinnati. He and his wife Laurie reside in Mariemont. He previously served as president of the Pacific Grove Pops Orchestra, and on the board of the Monterey Pops!
Lauren McAllister – Personnel Manager
Cincinnati-based Mezzo-Soprano Lauren McAllister performs regularly with a variety of choral ensembles, including Conspirare, the Cincinnati Vocal Arts Ensemble, Collegium Cincinnati, and Heri et Hodie. She is a co-founder of two ensembles: the Avimimus duo and Seven Hills Baroque. Lauren is an artist on four Grammy-nominated recordings for Best Choral Performance: Conspirare’s House of Belonging (soloist), The Singing Guitar (soloist), The Hope of Loving (soloist), and the PaTRAM Institute Singers’ Sander: The Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom.
Lauren earned her Master of Music degree in Voice Performance from the University of Cincinnati-College Conservatory of Music (CCM). She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Voice Performance from the Eastman School of Music.
Adam Shoaff – Musicologist
Adam Shoaff completed a PhD in Historical Musicology at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music in 2016 with a dissertation that examined the revival of public opera in Germany in the 1760s and 1770s, especially in the city of Leipzig. He has presented his research at conferences for the Society for 18th-Century Music, the American Musicological Society, and Beethoven at 250 in Bonn.
Now working as an independent scholar, Adam is grateful to have the opportunity to talk about his favorite composer on a regular basis with an avid public audience. In addition to musicology, Adam plays the saxophone and piano, and sings in the tenor section of the May Festival Chorus. Outside of music, Adam takes a keen interest in German history and culture, and enjoys taking German language classes through the Tri-State German American School.