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Mark Kurtz - Former Director (2000-2010)
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Mark Kurtz is active as a director, performer, and composer of music that creates wholeness among diverse people and musical styles. His studies began at the North Carolina School of the Arts, where he received a Chancellor’s Award for Excellence and graduated as Outstanding Senior. From there, he continued studies at the University of Michigan School of Music, where he was twice named an Angell Scholar and graduated with highest honors. His Master of Arts degree is from the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, where he lived and worked in musical theater, church music, and composition, before moving to Omaha in 2000.
His compositions have been performed across the United States, in Canada, and in Europe, winning awards from Westminster Choir College and the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers. Recently, he has begun offering workshops on creatively using the organ for contemporary music.
Mr. Kurtz is currently Director of Music Ministries at First United Methodist Church.
If you would like to read his letter explaining his decision to step down, click here.
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Salli Compton - Accompanist
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Salli is thrilled to be working with a chorus she has admired for years. A musical junkie, Salli has played for Breathe and Elegies for Angel, Punks and Raging Queens for Snap! Productions, Carousel and My Fair Lady for the Omaha Community Playhouse, West Side Story and La Cage aux Folles for the Chanticleer, The Medium, Six Women With Brain Death and Nine for Little Apple Productions, Tommy for the Shelterbelt, and Lewis and Clark: Manifest Destiny and Do Black Patent Leather Shoes Really Reflect Up? for Creighton University. She accompanies the North Side Christian Church Choir, plays for the local students of Dr. Laureen Pickles Voice Studio, and teaches private piano lessons. A professional at Dundee Elementary School, Salli enjoys teaching character lessons and acting as Recess Goddess. Her most amazing gig to date is playing in a church combo with her son, Whit, on bass and her son, Luke, on drums. |
Wayne Moore - Assistant Director
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E. Dwayne Moore (Wayne), now entering his fourth season with RCMC, enjoys a lengthy musical career. As the Assistant Artistic Director of RCMC, he is honored to direct its newly formed outreach ensemble, River’s Edge. He has worked under the baton of a number of conductors, including Dr. Tim Seelig (Turtle Creek Chorale), the late Dr. Robert L. Shaw (Atlanta Symphony Orchestra), and René Clausen (Concordia College). He studied vocal pedagogy at Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls, Texas under Dr. Donald Maxwell, Gwyn Beaver and Rachel Kapelski. He also studied choral conducting and ethnomusicology at the University of North Dakota. He has 18 years of directing choirs serving as a choral director in Texas, Oklahoma, North Dakota, and Minnesota. More recently, he is the director of Bella Voz Youth Choir and Compassion at First United Methodist Church, where he serves as Music and Youth Associate.
He is a member of Mu Phi Epsilon International Music Fraternity, Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, Kappa Kappa Psi National Honorary Band Fraternity, the American Choral Directors Association and the National Association of Music Education.
As an operatic singer, he enjoyed roles in La Cenerentola (Prince Ramiro), L'italiana in Algeri (Taddeo), Il barbiere di Siviglia (Figaro), Don Giovanni (Leporello), Die Zauberflöte (Monastatos), and Le nozze di Figaro (Count Almaviva). As a thespian, he has performed in Showboat (Joe), Big River (Jim), Into the Woods (Rapunzel’s Prince), A Little Night Music (Count Carl-Magnus Malcom), The Civil War (Frederick Douglas) and The Wiz (The Wiz).
He has sung all over the globe, throughout the United States as well as in Guatemala, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Poland, the Czech Republic, Holland, England, and Canada. He had the privilege of singing at Carnegie Hall at the age of 23.
Wayne came to Omaha to serve as the Interim Senior Pastor of the Metropolitan Community Church of Omaha, and currently pastors Crossroads Community Fellowship, which holds Sunday morning worship in Ada Mead Hall at First United Methodist Church. He has been in active ministry since 1989.
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