Music Team

Collaborative Pianist

Mark Feldhusen joined Commonwealth Chorale as our collaborative pianist in 2009. He serves in the same role at Temple Israel in Boston, Temple Beth Elohim in Wellesley, Rivers School Conservatory, and Perkins School for the Blind. Praised for his “sensitive accompaniment” (The Arts Fuse, 3/14/12), Mr. Feldhusen has also appeared in concert with the Heritage Chorale as well as numerous concerts of secular and sacred Jewish music. He is active in the Boston chamber music scene and annually attends the Bennington Chamber Music Conference. He has studied with Darryl Rosenberg and Kevin McGinty. A talented sight-reader and quick study, he has also been known to step out of the audience, take the place of an indisposed pianist, and save middle school performances of The Pajama Game.
 
Commonwealth Chorale thanks the Izolde Lamont Fund for making this position possible.

Section Leaders

Maria Whitcomb, Soprano

Hailing from New York State’s Catskill Mountain Region, soprano Maria Whitcomb is new to Boston’s rich musical community. Maria has been Commonwealth Chorale's soprano section lead since 2024. The 2025-2026 season holds numerous collaborations with Commonwealth Chorale as a part of their 50th Anniversary season. Whitcomb will feature as a soloist for Lilli Boulanger’s Pie Jesu, Mozart’s Requiem and José Nunes Garcia’s Laudate Pueri. 

Locally, she performs with Lilith Vocal Ensemble and MetroWest Chamber Players, and has enjoyed close collaborations with local composer Bruno Faria. The title role in his 2019 chamber opera Voices Followed: The Illumination of Joan of Arc, was written especially for her. Also, in 2021, in memory of her late father, Benjamin Whitcomb III, Faria composed the song cycle Sing Song, based on the children's verses and rhymes by Christina Rossetti

Whitcomb's operatic repertoire includes works by Mozart, Menotti, Purcell, Faria, Gluck, Rorem, and Johann Strauss II. She received her undergraduate degree from Syracuse University under the tutelage of Janet Brown, and completed her graduate work in opera at  Longy School of Music of Bard College, with Jayne West. She currently studies with Dana Lynne Varga and Mark Lee.

Laura Beth Couch, Mezzo-Soprano

Laura Beth Couch, lauded by The Boston Musical Intelligencer for singing with “deep pathos” and “radiant affection,” is a mezzo-soprano living in Boston. Laura is thrilled to have been Commonwealth Chorale's alto section leader and soloist since 2022. She earned her Performance Diploma from Boston University where she performed as Julia Child in Bon Appétit, Dorothée in Cendrillon, Alice 2 in Alice Tierney, and Friedrich Bhaer in Little Women. Other favorite roles include Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd (Opera51), Bradamante in Alcina (MassOpera), Mrs. Phagan in Parade (Lowell House Opera), Tisbe in La Cenerentola, La Ciesca in Gianni Schicchi, and Babette in Beauty and the Beast (Bay View Music Festival). Laura has been a soloist for Bach’s Magnificat, Bononcini’s Stabat Mater, Handel’s Messiah, Vivaldi’s Gloria, Mozart’s Coronation Mass, and Marianna Martines’s Dixit Dominus. A dedicated music teacher of over 10 years, she earned her M.M. in Voice Performance from Shenandoah University and her B.M. in Music Education from Rutgers University. 

Matthew McGinnis, Tenor

Matthew McGinnis is delighted to be in his second season with the Commonwealth Chorale as a section leader! He is a music teacher by day and maintains an active performing calendar in classical music and musical theatre. He enjoys performing oratorio, musicals, and choral music, and has been performing professionally for almost ten years. He has performed with Zenith Ensemble and around New England as a soloist and choral singer. His performances as a  soloist include Schubert’s Mass in G, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Handel’s Messiah, and Mozart’s Requiem. Outside of New England, he has performed a number of times with the St. Andrews Arts Council in New Brunswick, Canada as well as serving as a soloist and choral singer on tour in the Canadian Maritime region. When Matthew is not singing or teaching, he can often be found cooking and baking in his kitchen.

William Farrell, Baritone

William Farrell has been singing with Commonwealth Chorale as a section leader since 2016, and he is excited to be joining the group for another season. Since moving to the Greater Boston area in fall 2015, he has performed with various professional groups, including The Boston Camerata, The Tanglewood Festival Chorus for the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Boston Pops, Capella Nova Mundi, Canto Armonico, and St. Paul's Choir School. In 2019, he had the unique opportunity to perform at the activation Bleed for the Throne by HBO, Game of Thrones, and the American Red Cross at SXSW.
 
William graduated with a Master of Music in Early Music from the Longy School of Music in 2017. He loves to explore all types of historical performance, especially Renaissance polyphony and Baroque opera. Recently he has been on an endeavor with a few other professional singers to present rarely performed or unperformed Franco-Flemish polyphonic choral settings—one on a part—for St. Clements Eucharistic Shrine. They approach settings with liturgically appropriate texts in an attempt to survey a large portion of the repertoire that gets ignored. Outside of singing, William is an avid cyclist and loves to take any opportunity to return to New Hampshire where he can cycle on the beautiful mountain roads.