AYC Artistic Staff

Laurie J. Hays, soprano, has performed with the Carmel Bach Festival, Monterey County Symphony, San Diego Symphony and Master Chorale and the Oahu Choral Society ( Honolulu). An accomplished singer and pianist, Ms. Hays holds a degree in Music Education from Wittenberg University with studies at Christ’s and Notre Dame Colleges in Liverpool, England. Recent operatic roles include La Traviata (Annina), Amahl and the Night Visitors (Mother), Pirates of Penzance (Edith) and Die Fledermaus (Ida/Sally). Local audiences have seen her in numerous musical theater productions including Pippin (Fastrada), Carousel (Nettie), The Music Man (Mrs. Paroo), Camelot (Nimue), The Secret Garden (Rose), Fiddler on the Roof (Tzeitl) and Sweeney Todd (Quintet). Ms. Hays' recent performances in oratorio include the Mozart Requiem, Bach's Magnificat and St. Matthew and St. John Passions, Schubert's Mass in G, the Pergolesi Stabat Mater, Handel's Messiah, and the Faure Requiem. Ms. Hays is the director the Annapolis Youth Chorus, who made their Carnegie Hall debut in June 2006 under the direction of John Rutter.  She is the Upper School director of music at Severn School in Severna Park, teaches privately, and is a soloist at St. Anne's Episcopal Church in Annapolis.

Jill Jackson Woodward is the Vocal Music director for Indian Creek Middle School and the Performing Arts director for the school’s newly formed Upper School. In her eleven years at Indian Creek, her choirs have won numerous awards and honors with many students participating in All-State Choruses. In addition, she is Minister of Music and Organist at Epiphany Episcopal Church in Odenton, MD. Mrs. Woodward’s private voice studio has produced numerous vocal scholarship winners on the High School and University level. She received her Bachelors in Music Education and Voice from the Hartt School of Music, in Connecticut where she studied under Mary Mack, Adelaide Bishop, John Feierabend and James Jordan. Her graduate study in Voice and Opera was at Hartt and the University of Maryland and she holds a certificate from the Voice Care Network. Mrs. Woodward has performed at The Juilliard School, Westminster Choir College, the Worcester Chorus and Dundalk Community College. Her operatic performances include Faust (Marguite), Candide (Cunegonde), Marriage of Figaro (Susannah). Ms. Woodward lives in Severna Park with her husband and two children.

Carolene Winter, soprano, holds the degrees of Bachelor of Arts in Voice and Piano and
the Master of Music in Vocal Performance from California State University,
Fresno, and has also studied at the Hochschule fur Musik und Darstellende
Kunst in Vienna, Austria.  At the American Institute of Musical Studies
(AIMS) in Graz, Austria, Ms. Winter performed to critical acclaim in their
public orchestral/opera series.  Ms. Winter's vocal and dramatic abilities
have included performances at The Barnes at Wolf Trap, Cleveland Opera, Ohio
Light Opera, West Bay Opera in California, Prince George's Civic Opera and
Annapolis Opera.  Her operatic repertoire includes the roles of Gilda in
Rigoletto, Musetta in La Boheme, Zerlina in Don Giovanni, Dido in Dido and
Aeneas, Adele and Rosalinda in Die Fledermaus, Euridice in Offenbach's Orpheus in the
Underworld and Mabel in Gilbert and Sullivan's The Pirates of Penzance.  Ms.
Winter's concert and oratorio performances have included appearances with
the Washington Bach Consort, the Baltimore Symphony, the Annapolis Symphony
Orchestra, the Chesapeake Youth Symphony, the Fresno Philharmonic and the
Annapolis Chorale.  Ms. Winter is the Parish Organist at St. Anne's
Episcopal Parish in Annapolis, Maryland, and is the rehearsal accompanist
for the Annapolis Youth Chorus.