Our Vision
To bring the beauty of early music to life for the audiences of today.
Our Mission
The Ann Arbor Grail Singers is a women’s chamber ensemble that specializes in music from the Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque periods and in contemporary compositions that have an early music sensibility. We strive to find music that has been lost or forgotten, especially music that had been composed by or for women, and we strive to create an atmosphere of fellowship and camaraderie in which to learn and perform this music. By offering inspired, high quality performances we seek to educate our audiences about and increase their appreciation of this body of music.
Our History
A feature of the Michigan musical scene since 1995, the Ann Arbor Grail Singers were founded and directed by Lynn Malley, a choral conductor for over thirty years, who led workshops in Gregorian Chant and sacred music both in the U.S. and abroad. After Lynn Malley’s unexpected death in 2005, Deborah Friauff led the choir from 2006–2008, and Carmen Cavallaro directed from 2009–2018. Dr. Friauff returned from 2018–2022, and Jacob Carroll began his tenure as interim director in 2022. Our assistant director and rehearsal accompanist, Carolyn Dicks, was with the choir from its inception until 2020.
The Ann Arbor Grail Singers have been lauded for the beauty of their sound, and “their musicality, precision, balance, and intonation” (Current Magazine). The 16-voice women’s choir has performed regularly here in Ann Arbor at St. Andrews Episcopal Church, and at venues in Michigan and Ohio, including on the Detroit Institute of Arts “Brunch with Bach” Series, in the Toledo Art Museum, and at the University of Michigan Museum of Art.
Our Directors
Jacob Carroll
The Ann Arbor Grail Singers are pleased to have Jacob Carroll as our interim director for the 2022–2023 and 2023–2024 seasons. Jacob is well schooled in vocal and organ performance from Eastern Michigan University, has a Bachelor’s degree in harpsichord performance from the University of Michigan, and is completing a Master of Music in choral conducting, also from the University of Michigan. He has extensive choral experience, both as a tenor soloist and in ensemble settings, as well as varied conducting and teaching experience in the Ann Arbor and Detroit area. The works Jacob has conducted is impressive, ranging from Bartschmidt and Byrd to Victoria and Wood. His keyboard performances cover Bach to Scarlatti. We are delighted that Jacob is passionate about chant, and that he is uniquely qualified to be at the helm of our choir!
Deborah Friauff
Dr. Deborah Friauff is a versatile musician who performs professionally as a soprano, organist, and conductor. As Director of Music and Organist at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Ann Arbor, she oversees four parish choirs, organizes an annual concert series, chants and directs a weekly Compline service as well as other weekly and special liturgical events.
A native of Traverse City, she graduated with honors from Interlochen Arts Academy. After completing Bachelor and Master of Music degrees in organ at the University of Michigan under Marilyn Mason, Dr. Friauff was awarded the Georges Lurcy Fellowship for study in France. In France she studied with renowned recitalist Marie-Claire Alain at the Conservatoire National de Région, concentrating on the works of Jehan Alain, and was unanimously awarded the Premier Prix d’Orgue with the felicitations of the jury. Dr. Friauff completed her DMA degree in organ at the University of Michigan under Robert Glasgow.
As a singer, Dr. Friauff has studied Gregorian chant at St. Meinrad Seminary in Indiana and at St. John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota. At the University of British Columbia’s Early Music Vancouver festival, she studied medieval vocal music with members of Sequentia and Baroque vocal music and movement with Ellen Hargis and Steven Adby.
Dr. Friauff founded the St. Thomas Chant Schola in Ann Arbor, and has directed three Michigan-based early music ensembles: Sine Nomine of East Lansing, the Ann Arbor Grail Singers, and Eastern Michigan University’s Collegium Musicum. She sang soprano in the professional early music vocal ensemble VOX, and has sung with the Baroque Ensemble Voci dell’Anima.
Carmen Cavallaro
The Grail Singers’ former director was Carmen Cavallaro, a tenor and early music specialist, who has been active in the local early music community since the formation of the Academy of Early Music. He was a founding member of the Jongleurs, Ann Arbor performers of Medieval and Renaissance Music. During his tenure as Grail Singers director, he created performing editions for women’s choirs of many early music works, including the Gasparini Mass for five high voices recorded and published by the Grail Singers.
The Grail
Formed in the Netherlands in the 1920s, The Grail is an international women’s movement with roots in the Christian tradition, committed to spiritual search, social transformation, ecological sustainability, and the release of women’s creative energy throughout the world. Grailville, established in 1944 in Loveland, Ohio, is the first and largest U.S. Grail center and home to the National Grail Office.
After directing music at Grailville for many years, Lynn Malley recorded “A Women’s Celebration of Chant and Harmony: The Grail Singers,” twenty Latin chants and eight chant-inspired original English songs that celebrate the 50th anniversary of the American Grail, an organization of women who focus on spirituality, feminism, the arts, and social justice. That experience led Lynn to organize a group of singers “to concertize,” which in 1995 became the Ann Arbor Grail Singers.
From 1995 through 2017, the Ann Arbor choir functioned administratively under the aegis of The Grail, and we are very grateful for their longtime support. In late 2017, the Ann Arbor Grail singers became an independent Michigan 501(c)3 non-profit organization.
A Tale of Two Countries: The Story of Ann Arbor Grail Singers’ Gasparini Premiere
As one of the few U.S. women’s choirs that specialize in early music, the Ann Arbor Grail Singers are always looking for repertoire that suits our forces. So we were excited when one of our members, while taking an early music workshop at Cambridge University, made a discovery: faded photocopies of one section of a Gasparini Mass for five high voices.
Gasparini had composed the Mass for the women singers of the Pio Ospedale della Pietà in Venice, where he was Maestro di Coro from 1701 to 1713 and employed Antonio Vivaldi. Although not as well-known as his famous subordinate, Gasparini composed dozens of operas as well as sacred music. He was thought to have studied under Corelli, and one of his students was Domenico Scarlatti.
Grail Singers’ director—and longtime Michigan early musician—Carmen Cavallaro agreed that the music was interesting and unusual. So we began learning the Gloria, and Carmen said that if we could find the rest of the Mass, he would edit a new performing edition for us.
The University of Michigan music library identified the faded copy as from a 1920s edition and located copies in five U.S. universities, none nearby. Fortunately, one was at NYU, where former Academy of Early Music treasurer Neal Plotkin was able to check it out for us to read. Carmen began preparing his new edition, but wondered just how true the out-of-print copy was to Gasparini’s original score.
He began searching online repositories of music manuscripts, in the hope that some university or library had made the original score available on the Internet. Carmen found the location of Gasparini’s autograph copy—the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge—but sadly, no images of the Gasparini score were available. Carmen’s search yielded a microfilm folio number but no actual music.
We began a correspondence with the Manuscripts Curator at the Fitzwilliam, asking to copy the Gasparini manuscript when our choir member returned to England that summer. Although the museum staff was polite, their conservation policy prohibited access to such manuscripts. But hadn’t the score been microfilmed? After all, we had the folio number. Yes, there was a microfilm copy, but the microfilm itself was so old and fragile that no one was allowed access to it, either.
What could we do to consult Gasparini’s autograph copy? Although less than a mile from our frustrated choir member, it might as well have been on the moon. The Fitzwilliam Manuscripts Curator referred us to their Image Library staff. It turned out that the Fitzwilliam employs a photographer whom we could commission to photograph the microfilm of the score (not the actual autograph copy, which even the Fitzwilliam’s own photographer wasn’t allowed to touch).
After yet more correspondence with the Fitzwilliam, we placed the order. The final hurdle was negotiating with the museum bureaucracy that wanted us to pay the huge U.K. Value Added Tax. Non-EU residents aren’t subject to U.K. VAT, and the Fitzwilliam powers-that-be eventually reassured the Image Library that we needn’t pay the tax.
The photography was very expensive for a tiny nonprofit organization like the Grail Singers, but we decided that the benefit of singing from a truly accurate edition of the Gasparini Mass was worth the investment. After director Carmen Cavallaro studied the 44 pages of Gasparini’s original score, he was able to ensure that our new performing edition reflects exactly what Gasparini wrote.
The piece is rarely performed—our November 2011 concert was its Ann Arbor premiere, and received considerable local attention (see annarbor.com). The choir has recorded the Mass and released it as our fourth CD, the first since the death of founding director Lynn Malley.