Choral Society names new director

Marlene M. Markard, an East Hampton lawyer and musician, has been appointed executive director of the Choral Society of the Hamptons, effective immediately.

A corporate and commercial attorney with her own law practice in East Hampton, Ms. Markard is also the founder of In The Pink Inc., a non-profit organization dedicated to helping breast cancer patients and survivors reduce the incidence of lymphedema and cellulitis.

Ms. Markard earned her law degree from the Cardozo School of Law, where she was the senior managing editor of the Cardozo Women’s Law Journal. She received a bachelor of arts degree in music and English literature, and graduated cum laude from Barnard College, where she represented her graduating class as a senior scholar.

Ms. Markard is also an accomplished musician, having studied classical piano at the Juilliard School, the Manhattan School of Music and the Mannes College of Music. In 2007, she recorded a CD entitled “Healing Harmony: Chakra Music Therapy,” a collection of classical piano pieces intended to help cancer patients and others who suffer from mental, physical or emotional illness regain balance and peace.

In addition to singing with the Choral Society, Ms. Markard performs on the East End, having appeared most recently as Susan in Michael Disher’s production of “Company” at the Southampton Cultural Center.

In her new capacity as executive director, Ms. Markard will help produce the Choral Society’s spring concert, scheduled on Sunday, March 29, at 4 p.m. at the First Presbyterian Church of East Hampton. A guest conductor, Avid Williams, will lead the group in the Long Island premiere of “The Tribulation Suite,” by M. Roger Holland II, described by the composer as “a suite in four movements based on Negro Spirituals,” Joseph Haydn’s “Te Deum for the Empress Marie Therese” and Beethoven’s Mass in C Major.

The Choral Society of the Hamptons was formed in 1946 by Charlotte Rogers Smith, a local choir director, and her brother, Henry Fordham, with the goal of offering residents of the East End the chance to both perform and hear great choral music. In the six decades since, the largely amateur group has sung well over 200 concerts, directed and accompanied by professional conductors, soloists and instrumentalists. Its repertory ranges from pre-Renaissance works to those of modern American composers such as Norman Dello Joio and Lukas Foss.

The Society’s music director and resident conductor is Mark Mangini, who in 2007 led the Society, the Greenwich Village Singers, and the Brooklyn Philharmonic in a performance of Foss’s “The Prairie” at Lincoln Center and at the Channing Sculpture Garden in Bridgehampton.

This summer, Mr. Mangini will conduct the combined choruses in a performance of the Brahms German Requiem at the Old Whalers Church in Sag Harbor on Saturday, July 11, at 8 p.m.

The Society, whose members hail from all areas of the South and North forks, supports the East End community in a variety of ways, including the award of three scholarships every year to promising high school students who plan to pursue careers in music.