Our Staff:

Gary Geiger, Director
Kathryn Crabb, Associate Director
Evelyn Dias, Pianist/Intern
Ileana Becker, Junior Assistant Director
Elizabeth Haas, Junior Assistant

 

 

The ECC Board of Directors:
Gary Geiger, President
Kay Blume, Vice President
David Williams, Treasurer
Lesley Williams, Secretary
Jeff Balch
Melissa Gutridge
Ruth Haas
Jacqueline Haimes
Patricia Perez
Liza Steman

 

 

Gary Geiger, President
see above


Kay Blume, Vice President
Kay and her husband, Howard moved to Chicago in 1995 from the Finger Lakes in upstate New York where they owned and operated Goat Folks Farm, makers of award winning artisan goat's milk cheeses. Kay's love of the arts blossomed as a child growing up in Pennsylvania. She studied voice, drama and ballet beginning at age 5. She left home for New York City at 17 to enroll in drama school and for the next 40 years performed there on stage, screen and television. Along the way she graduated from the New York Restaurant School, partnered with her husband in a small advertising agency, and nearly received her degree in clinical psychology. Kay has been the assistant manager for both the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's Telefunding and Telemarketing departments since 1996.  She has a son, a daughter and three grandchildren. Grandson, Justin is a member of the ECC Junior Choir.


David Williams, Treasurer
David was born in San Diego in 1969, where he began playing drums at age 15. His love for jazz music brought him to the task of learning the intricacies of jazz drumming, which has become a life long pursuit. He had the good fortune to play with many of the local greats in San Diego like Mike Wofford, Gilbert Castellanos and Joe Marillo. In 1997 he moved to Chicago, where he continues to develop his craft by playing jazz gigs around town both independently and with his combo, the Dave Williams Trio, which continues a long running residency at Bandera Restaurant in downtown Chicago.

In addition to performing, Dave teaches drums, studies the French language and is diligently working on a 2nd bachelor’s degree in accounting.  Dave performed as a guest artist with the Evanston Children’s Choir in the 2008 Spring Concert and has been a fan ever since.  His love of numbers, music and the ECC make him a perfect fit for his new role on our Board.


Lesley Williams, Secretary
When thwarted in her original career goal of hustling at Jeopardy tournaments, Lesley decided to cash it all in for the high stakes, rollercoaster world of library science. She spends most of her days at the Evanston Public Library soothing terrified 7th graders whose laptops died the night before their final research papers were due, and vainly trying to convince them that encyclopedias existed prior to Wikipedia. Mild-mannered power “shusher” by day, Lesley dabbles in the dark art of musical theatre as a member of the Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation's Purim Players, where she has played major roles in such unforgettable productions as West Side Tsuris, Bally Chai, and Camelplotz. She has passed this hereditary malady on to her daughter Callie, who in addition to singing in the ECC Junior Choir, has performed with JRC, the Musical Institute's "Broadway Bound" program, and the House Theatre Children's Camp. Oh, and the little piker also plays violin, but let's not brag.

Lesley is a committed Evanstonian, and a 9-year veteran of the local United Way board. Her husband Brian Benson, a lifelong Evanston resident, is a freelance graphic designer specializing in nonprofits and libraries (go figure). Although the previous highlight of Lesley's musical career was deleting all Barry Manilow tunes from her iPod, she is proud and delighted to be a member of the ECC Board. She is eminently qualified for the role of Secretary, having recently updated the spellchecker on her computer.

Lesley’s educational credentials include a BA from Grinnell College (1982), a Professorat from the Institut Catholique de Paris (1985), and an MLIS from the University of Michigan (1989).


Jeff Balch
Jeff works as a free-lance writer and public library staffer. Much of his writing is about alternative lifestyle and parenting choices--TV-lessness, carlessness, bikefulness--but he also dabbles in song composition. His musical tastes tend toward the comic: one of his novelty songs was featured on Garrison Keillor's "A Prairie Home Companion."

Jeff graduated from Harvard College with a concentration in English. While in school he also pursued several activist interests, such as co-establishing Harvard's Endowment for Divestiture, an alternative to the traditional Class Gift during the college's controversial period of investment in Apartheid-era South Africa.

Subsequently Jeff taught at an American college-prep school near Salzburg, Austria, and worked in Washington, DC as communications director for a national nuclear disarmament group, editing publications and organizing successful get-out-the-vote efforts for congressional campaigns from 1986 to 1992. While in DC he co-founded Home Court, a Georgetown Law School-sponsored project benefiting the District's homeless families.

Jeff is married to the wonderful Dori Conn, an avid ECC volunteer, and is the father of two children who sing like little birds (in the ECC, on bicycle rides, and occasionally at inopportune moments).


Melissa Gutridge
In her two decades as one of the most successful senior campaign managers for SDA Melissa has worked with major arts organizations including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Joffrey Ballet, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Alley Theatre and Arena Stage.

Drawing on her 20 years of experience in campaign design, implementation and management, Melissa now works with arts organizations in a new way by collaborating and developing partnerships in order to help organizations improve their bottom line.  She founded Voices for the Arts, Inc., in 2009 with the desire to work one on one and side by side with arts organizations to help build, strengthen and sustain their efforts to develop larger audiences, attract and cultivate new donors, patrons and supporters.  She remains that organization’s Principal Consultant.

Melissa is a committed professional with an impressive track record. She has developed a reputation as an effective leader and an exceptional resource for the arts with extensive experience in marketing and fundraising strategy, sales and management training, organizational consulting and executive coaching.

Those who know Melissa describe her as positive and friendly with a great sense of humor and a “wink and a smile” approach to life and work that is infectious.

Melissa is board advisor for Inaside Dance Chicago and is happy to serve on the board of the Evanston Children’s Choir.


Ruth Haas
Ruth is a closet dancer, singer and dreamer, who dreams big for the world, who secretly helps people who don't know they're being helped, all in the quest to make people happy!  She's come through Engineering and Computer Science (University of Illinois - Urbana, a native of Chicago and Buffalo Grove) via heart and love and trying to figure out the world, hopefully finding all the answers and meeting people of all sorts to share life with!

She dreams of a bigger and better place for all humans!  We have been on a path to today, each of us, and we're wending our way to where we hope to be.  Ruth has come through the path of technology, but there's art and there's life in everything we do, and that's where she is today—living and loving the art and the life in our "human being" and, of course, raising her two beloved children, whom she often finds spontaneously bursting into song and music.  She loves dancing and singing and finding the joy in every human being she sees and meets, because that's who we all are, our joy and personality, each a delightful gift to discover.  And this choir is very much that, a conglomeration of people of every age and many countries, expressing the joy and loveliness of cultures 'round the globe, which brings us all together at a time when we are more globally connected than ever.  Ruth profoundly enjoys sharing love for each other in all countries around the world through the music of the Evanston Children's Choir because it is bigger than us, it is bigger than we know and it transcends far beyond our imagination and makes us all feel valued no matter where we come from.


Jacqueline Haimes
Jacqueline Haimes is new to the ECC board in 2009. However, she has been an enthusiastic ECC parent since 2006. Originally from Bethesda, Maryland, Jackie has always had a passion for the performing arts, spending much of her free time in childhood singing and dancing. She spent her 20s as a medical student, psychiatric resident, and child psychiatry fellow, respectively, which unfortunately made it difficult for Jackie to pursue singing and dancing. She and her husband moved to Illinois in 1998. Jackie originally worked at the University of Illinois Chicago in the Institute for Juvenile Research practicing academic psychiatry. Since having her daughter Anika, Jackie now works part time as a child/adolescent and general psychiatrist in her private practice in downtown Evanston. Anika will be entering 4th grade this fall at Kingsley Elementary School and is a member of ECC’s Main Choir. Gradually over the past several years, Jackie has found time to sing and dance again! She studies dance at the Giordano Dance Center where she proudly brags that she is (at least) twice the age of most of the students there. In addition, Jackie has been performing in community musical theatre in Wilmette in such shows as Oklahoma, Ragtime, and Beauty and the Beast. Jackie is thrilled to be connected with the Evanston Children’s Choir and hopes to see it continue to grow and thrive in the years to come.


Patricia Perez
Originally from the Philippines, Trish comes from several generations of accomplished musicians. The product of a classically-trained pianist mother and jazz singer father, Trish and her three younger siblings all began their classical piano studies at the age of 5 in addition to picking up a second instrument around the age of 11 (Trish chose the flute). Moving to different states and countries during her childhood due her father’s work as a chemical engineer allowed Trish to compete and perform predominantly in Texas, Oklahoma, and Europe.

Trish continued postsecondary studies with Carmen Orr in the School of Music at Northwestern University. She received her BA degree in psychology from Northwestern University, MEd degree in Child Development/Infant Studies from the Erikson Institute, and PhD in Counseling Psychology (minor in Multi-cultural Counseling) from Loyola University Chicago. Currently a developmental specialist and psychotherapist in private practice, Trish continues her passion for music, dance, and the arts through volunteer work in the Chicagoland area.  Her eldest daughter, Riley, is a member of the Main Choir.


Liza Steman