About Siskiyou Singers
Siskiyou Singers is a auditioned community choir in Ashland, Oregon.
Mark Reppert, Artistic Director
Mr. Mark Reppert studied conducting, composition, piano, and music history at the University of Southern California, graduating with a degree in Music History. He received a master’s degree in Piano Performance from California State University, Chico, graduating with distinction.
Mr. Reppert began his teaching career in California in 1975. He taught all manner of music from kindergarten to adult, including band, orchestra, elementary music, college music appreciation, community choir, middle school and high school choir. Moving to Oregon in 1998, Mr. Reppert was director of choral music at North Medford High School. The award-winning choirs were an important part of the musical community, performing in many venues including the annual Renaissance Dinner. Mr. Reppert also served as music director for numerous musical theater productions at North, including Into the Woods, The King and I, and Fiddler on the Roof.
Mr. Reppert retired from teaching in 2008 and is now an active musician in the Rogue Valley. He has served as music director at Camelot Theatre (Sweeney Todd, Cabaret, Gypsy, Les Misérables) and as an accompanist throughout the valley. His compositions and arrangements have been performed by many groups throughout Oregon and California. He is also a choral adjudicator for both middle school and high school choir competitions.
Mr. Reppert is in his 15th year as director of Siskiyou Singers. During his tenure, the choir has performed many major works, such as the Chichester Psalms of Leonard Bernstein, the Mass in D of Dvořák, and the Coronation Mass of Mozart. Siskiyou Singers has also presented many world premieres of works by local composers.
Schedule an AuditionMikiko S. Petrucelli, Accompanist
Mikiko S. Petrucelli was born in Tokyo, Japan, where she started playing piano at age 4. She attended the Mushashino Academia Musicae and received her undergraduate degree in Piano Performance. She then moved to Germany and earned a Performance Degree from Hochschule fĂĽr Musik, Detmold in Detmold, Germany.
After she returned to Japan, Dr. Petrucelli played with the string chamber group Uovo as their guest pianist, touring Japan and giving chamber and solo concerts in Germany. She has played on NHK, the national public radio service in Japan, and won a special award at the Josef Dichter Competition in Vienna, Austria in 2001. In 2008, she won the first prize at the Chiara Competition.
In 2003, Dr. Petrucelli moved to the United States and received a Master’s of Music from Baylor University and a Doctor of Musical Arts in Piano Performance from the University of Nebraska, Lincoln.
She has also studied Historical Performance Practice on fortepiano. In 2008, she was invited to an international conference as a result of a complete Hixson-Lied Presentation of Scholarly and Creative Activity Grant. She attended an international conference, “The Art of the Fortepiano,” and performed in several concerts in Middleburg, The Netherlands.
Dr. Petrucelli has extensive experience as a chamber and solo pianist as well as an accompanist. As of May 2010, Dr. Petrucelli completed three years of service at Doane College in Crete, Nebraska, as an adjunct faculty member. She is an accompanist not only for Siskiyou Singers, but also for the Rogue Valley Chorale and the Rogue Valley Peace Choir. She serves as a musician at Ascension Lutheran Church in Medford and is a collaborative pianist at Southern Oregon University’s Music Department. She is in her 13th season as accompanist for Siskiyou Singers.
During the school year members of the Siskiyou Singers offer an Educational Outreach program that offers free concerts in local public schools, engaging students with music and helping to spark a lifelong appreciation of the arts.
If you are interested in having the choir come to your school, contact Sally Peterson at (541) 552-0965.
Board of Directors 2024–2025
| Name | Role |
|---|---|
| Steve Thomas* | President |
| Michele Kyle* | President‑Elect |
| Laura Barlow* | Treasurer |
| Mary Van Wesep* | Secretary |
| Howie Seay | Social Media & Membership Chair |
| Loretta Barker | |
| Mary Bergstrom | |
| Jasmin Conley | |
| Sean Connolly | |
| Andrew Klein | |
| Carol Lambie | |
| Inga Leed | |
| Scott L. Nelson | |
| Bonnie Walker |
* Executive board member
Siskiyou Singers is a community choir composed of enthusiastic residents from across the Rogue Valley and beyond. We welcome adult singers of all ages, races, ethnicities, nationalities, immigration or citizenship statuses, cultural traditions, religious beliefs or lack thereof, political affiliations, sexual orientations, and gender identities. We celebrate our differences, promote inclusivity, and strive to maintain an atmosphere of friendship, safety, and artistic collaboration.
We rehearse weekly on Tuesdays from 7 to 9:30 p.m. during each season, with additional rehearsals scheduled as needed. Membership is by audition at the discretion of the artistic director. Auditions are typically held at 6:30 p.m. before the first and second rehearsals of each term at First Methodist Church of Ashland, 175 N. Main Street.
Members pay $35 per term, and scholarships are available to ensure that cost is never a barrier to participation.
Schedule an AuditionMission
Siskiyou Singers seeks to promote and enrich musical culture in the Rogue Valley.
Vision
Siskiyou Singers is a first class choral group that performs a wide variety of the world’s music and is accessible and affordable to listeners of all ages and interests.
Values
- Excellence: We perform choral music that is recognized as excellent in both performance quality and imaginative programming.
- Approachability: We provide the opportunity to enjoy choral music, either as an audience member or as a singer. We keep ticket prices and membership fees as low as our financial situation allows.
- Hospitality: We provide a welcoming environment for all choir members, and encourage choir collegiality and sense of community.
- Diversity: We strive to be inclusive in the types of musical programs we offer, and in our efforts to widen the demographics of our choir membership and our audiences.
- Sustainability: We manage choir operations with a focus on long term choir sustainability. This includes development and execution of plans to address the imperatives of financial sustainability, choir vitality and audience development.
- Transparency: The Board of Directors is proactive in providing choir members with access to current information about board discussions, issues and actions, as well as choir financial status.
Siskiyou Singers—or the Siskiyou Chamber Singers, as we were originally dubbed—was the brain child of former Ashland resident Jacqueline Dougherty, who became the founder and director of our community choir in 1982.
In 1988, Dave Marston was concluding an 11-year association with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival as a musician when he took over the leadership of the choir after Dougherty left the area. The choir grew in numbers gradually, dropping the “Chamber Singers” title (since it refers to a smaller ensemble) and eventually reaching its present total of about 60 singers, all of whom have auditioned to become members. After Dave Marston’s death in 2009, Mark Reppert was chosen as the new Artistic Director.
In 2012, Siskiyou Singers celebrated its 30th anniversary. See a pictorial history here.