Robert Simpson, Founder and Conductor Laureate of the Grammy® award-winning Houston Chamber Choir

 

Robert Simpson is Founder and Conductor Laureate of the Grammy® award-winning Houston Chamber Choir. He is also Canon for Music at the historic Christ Church Cathedral (Episcopal), Houston, Texas and Lecturer of Church Music at the Shepherd School of Music, Rice University.

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Mr. Simpson is the recipient of Chorus America’s Michael Korn Founders Award for the Development of the Professional Choral Art and The American Prize.  The Houston Chamber Choir also received The American Prize and was honored by Chorus America with the Margaret Hillis Award for Choral Excellence.

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Following his graduation with honors from Brown University and The School of Sacred Music at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, Mr. Simpson studied for two years at the Hochschule für Musik, Cologne, Germany. His teachers have included organists Barclay Wood, Robert Baker and Michael Schneider and conductors Abraham Kaplan, Peter Neumann, Gustaf Sjökvist and Eric Ericson.    Learn More

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Marianna Parnas-Simpson, Founding Member of Houston Chamber Choire and Founder of the Treble Choir of Houston

 

Marianna Parnas-Simpson, graduated with a master’s degree in Choral Conducting from the St. Petersburg Conservatory, Russia. She founded the award-winning St. Petersburg Girls’ Choir, Kamerton, which she directed for ten years before coming to the United States. Since 1999 Ms. Simpson has taught at Parker Elementary School, a Houston ISD magnet school for music, and created a chorus program that grew from 30 to 250 children, grades 1-5. In 2005, she was named Teacher of the Year by her fellow teachers at Parker Elementary. In 2006 Marianna founded the Treble Choir of Houston.     Learn More