Meet the singers

  • Carolyn Mortell (she/her) joined Musae in 2024 after a lifetime of singing in school choirs, musicals, and college a cappella groups. As an adult, she was a founding member of the Young New Yorker's Chorus Treble Ensemble, as well as a member of Resound Ensemble in San Francisco. During the day, she works in Customer Success at a global ad tech company. In her spare time, you can find her outside: trail running, hiking/backpacking in the mountains, or walking the hills of SF with her husky Layla.  

  • Anjali Jameson (she/her) sang with the San Francisco Girls Chorus in her youth, touring with both SFGC’s Chorissima and Virtuosi groups. She is a trained classical pianist who now only plays when helping her kids practice! During the day, Anjali leads product management and design at One Medical, a primary care organization located across the country. She has been singing with Musae since 2016.

  • Barrie McClune (she/her) sang with the San Francisco Girls Chorus from age seven to eighteen. In her three decades of choral singing, she has only spent one season singing a part other than first soprano. She loves to learn and chose a career in organization development so she could learn alongside her clients as they navigate uncertainty. Outside of work she enjoys being a beginner at piano, a novice deadlifter, and a thoroughly confused, self-directed student in complexity science and chaos theory. She serves as a singer rep on the Musae board of directors.

  • Christine Rojas (she/her) mezzo, grew up in Austin, TX and has been a vocalist her whole life. She’s so excited to be sharing music with Musae! A chemical engineer by schooling with a passion for design and user experience, she runs Product and Innovation at a nutrition start-up. She loves cooking, baking, hiking all over the bay, playing with her dog Pepper at the beach, and hosting bbq’s in the backyard. She and her husband just got their first home, a fixer, and most of her spare time is spent re-enacting the movie “The Money Pit.”

  • Colleen O’Hara (she/her) has been singing for as long as she can remember, and a member of Musae since 2005. Musae and music making have alway been sacred to Colleen, providing her with a creative outlet and bringing balance to her life. During the day she works in strategic planning and project management in the arts and cultural attractions industry. She currently lives in Berkeley with her husband, and their pets, where she loves to hike and enjoy the wonderful green space throughout the Bay Area.

  • Danielle Schickele (she/her) joined Musae in 2018 shortly after moving to San Francisco from the East Coast where she lived and worked for two years. Originally from Davis, CA, Danielle became increasingly involved in choir in high school. She went on to sing in the Pomona College Choir and Pomona College Glee Club for four years. Singing in Musae is a welcome break from her job as a vice president at a boutique executive search firm. She’s also learning to play tennis and enjoys spending time with her friends.

  • Kate Sommer (she/her) grew up singing with the San Francisco Girls Chorus, and joined Musae in 2023. She recently returned to San Francisco after living in London for many years, and has sung in choirs across the United States and United Kingdom. Outside of singing, Kate works in strategy and operations for a small tech company, and enjoys hiking, traveling, and volunteering with the Junior League of San Francisco.

  • Katie Innes (she/her) joined Musae in 2007, after four years with the Whitman College Chorale and eight years in the San Francisco Girls Chorus. Currently a stay-at-home mom to Brynjar and Freyja, Katie spends her free time cooking, watching women’s soccer, and listening to a wide variety of podcasts. Always an alto of some sort, Katie is delighted to be back on the bottom line singing the low notes, looping and repetitive bass lines, and parts originally written for male voices.

  • Kim McClain (she/her) is a music and movement teacher and board member at Synergy School in the Mission where she practices Orff Schulwerk with her preschool, elementary, and middle school students. She also teaches piano lessons and she lives for those magical moments when learning happens. Kim has been singing with Musae since 2013, and she now also has the pleasure of serving as Musae’s administrative director.

  • Kirstin Cummings (she/her) grew up in the Bay Area singing in the San Francisco Girls Chorus. She has been with Musae since its inception and is also the Musae board president. After a career in technology after college, she now helps rescue cats in Oakland and the East Bay with a particular focus on spaying and neutering, education, data collection, and community support.

  • Lauren Schwartz (she/her) joined Musae in 2009 at which time she apprehensively made the leap from second soprano to second alto, and has never looked back. She has been lucky to sing with many of the talented singers of Musae since she was seven years old in the San Francisco Girls Chorus, and she’s thrilled to introduce her daughter to the magic of treble voices. When she’s not singing, Lauren works as Vice President of Enterprise Sales at Fivetran, a tech company in the Bay Area.

  • Michela Macfarlane (she/her) thrives most in settings where gorgeous harmony abounds. For the past 25 years, she has sung professionally anything from medieval, baroque, and broadway to jazz, folk, blues, and pop music. Michela joined Musae in 2010 and her Gold Country cover band Cantamos two years prior to that, where she continues to relish the harmonies and deep human connection through live performance. Her days are spent on long walks with her dog, cycling through new and old recipes, and riding the ever-changing family dynamic with two teen boys.

  • Rachel Herbert (she/her) is the Director of Learning Services at the Urban School, where she helps students identify and utilize individualized learning strategies. She originally joined Musae in 2003 and is so happy to return for the fall 2023 season! She lives in San Francisco with her husband and two daughters across from a festively decorated fire station.

  • Sabrina Adler (she/her) is the vice president of law at ChangeLab Solutions in Oakland, where she works on legal and policy issues related to public health and health equity. Growing up, she sang in the San Francisco Girls Chorus (with several other Musae singers!) for 10 years. She joined Musae after graduating from college – and before it was known as Musae – and is one of two current singers to have sung with the group since its inception. For the first 10 or so years of Musae’s existence she also served as administrative director, a role she has gratefully passed along since her formerly free time has been devoured by her two young children.

  • Sydney Weaver (she/her) is a Soprano from Oakland, CA. She joined Musae in 2023 but discovered her passion for singing in 2012, when she was dragged to her sibling’s audition for the Young Women’s Chorus of San Francisco (YWC) and was instantly hooked when she heard the angelic sounds of the chorus. In addition, Sydney brings over a decade of private voice training, a minor in vocal performance, and experience singing with other choirs. She is thankful that working with Dr. Susan McMane (YWC), and her other choral experiences have given her the opportunity to tour internationally, collaborate with the SF Symphony, and premiere a new opera. Outside of music, Sydney loves running and has just begun training for her first marathon. Additionally, Sydney holds an MA from Columbia University (NY) and is passionate about gender equity and fostering global change for a more just world.

  • Teresa Newmark (she/her) grew up singing and studied vocal performance and conducting as part of her undergraduate degree. Her interest in voice and vocal production led her to pursue a career in speech and language pathology, and she currently owns and runs a private practice that supports children working on various aspects of communication and feeding. After a long hiatus, she rediscovered her love of music when her daughter began piano lessons, and in 2017 joined Musae where she is thrilled to be singing with some of the very people she performed with when she was her daughter’s age.

  • Amy Strauss (she/her) grew up singing with the San Francisco Girls Chorus, and continued to sing with various choral groups in college and beyond. She joined Musae in 2021. Besides singing, she is passionate about science literacy and works as a science educator and STEM research mentor to high school students.

  • Allison Lynk (she/her) kickstarted her musical passion by yearning to play Mary in The Secret Garden on Broadway. While that particular dream never came true, she spent her youth in New Jersey and New York singing in many school, church, and community choirs and theater productions. She made her way to San Francisco in 2010 and has been singing second soprano in Musae ever since. By day, Allison works as a product marketer for Twilio Segment, and also enjoys reading, painting, and dreaming up travel plans.

  • Valerie Moy (she/her) spends her workday hours writing code for Pinterest while occasionally getting distracted by the hummingbirds outside the window of her home office in the Mission. In her spare time, Valerie enjoys going on walks around the city, searching for perfect bites, and of course singing, both with Musae and the International Orange Chorale. She first joined Musae in 2010.