Music at St. Andrew's

A versatile musician, Dr. Deborah Friauff performs professionally as a soprano, organist, and conductor. As Director of Music and Organist at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in Ann Arbor, she oversees four parish choirs, organizes an annual concert series, chants and directs a weekly Compline service as well as other weekly and special liturgical events. A native of Traverse City, she began studying the organ at the age of eight with Betty Kurtz. She graduated with honors from Interlochen Arts Academy as an organ major under Robert Murphy, and also studied viola with David Holland and voice with Kenneth Jewell and Carolyn Grimes. After completing Bachelor and Master of Music degrees in organ at the University of Michigan under Marilyn Mason, Dr. Friauff was awarded the Georges Lurcy Fellowship for study in France. There she studied with renowned recitalist Marie-Claire Alain at the Conservatoire National de

Région, concentrating on the works of Jehan Alain, and was unanimously awarded the Premier Prix d'Orgue with the felicitations of the jury. She was also a prize winner in the Chicago Club of Women Organists Gruenstein competition, and the International Undergraduate Organ competition in Ottumwa, Iowa. Dr. Friauff completed her DMA degree in organ at the University of Michigan under Robert Glasgow. She has performed across the country in venues such as the San Anselmo Organ Festival in California and the Piccolo Spoleto Arts Festival in Charleston, South Carolina, as well as for Conventions of the American Guild of Organists and the Organ Historical Society. Her performance at the 1995 National Convention of the Organ Historical Society has been issued on the OHS label. She has also served as Adjunct Professor of Organ at Eastern Michigan University.

As a singer, she has studied with Frances Brockington at Wayne State University and coached with Jane Heirich, Wendy Bloom and Ellen Hargis, and has sung soprano in the professional early music vocal ensemble VOX. She has studied Gregorian chant at St. Meinrad Seminary in Indiana with Columba Kelly, OSB, and at St. John's University in Collegeville, Minnesota with Anthony Ruff, OSB. Further studies have recently been undertaken over two summers at the University of British Columbia's Early Music Vancouver festival. There she has studied medieval vocal music with members of Sequentia in the Medieval Music Programme, and Baroque vocal music and movement in the Baroque Vocal Programme with Ellen Hargis and Steven Adby. She founded the St. Thomas Chant Schola in Ann Arbor, and has directed three Michigan-based early music ensembles: Sine Nomine of East Lansing, Michigan, the Ann Arbor Grail Singers, and Eastern Michigan University's Collegium Musicum. Currently, she sings soprano in the Baroque Ensemble Voci dell'Anima, working with co-founders Pamela Ruiter-Feenstra (organ/harpsichord), and Debra Lonergan (gamba).