George Lister, Sally Munro Bios

George I. Lister

is a teacher of the F. M. Alexander Technique as certified by the American Society for the Technique. He began his studies of the Technique with Beret Arcaya in New York City in 1986 and trained to be a teacher at The Center for The Alexander Technique in Menlo Park, California beginning October, 1991. He was certified by NASTAT (now AmSAT) in July, 1994 and has continued advanced studies with Troup Matthews in New York City, Frank Ottiwell, in San Francisco and Walter Carrington in London.

In September 2004 in Palo Alto, California, Mr. Lister established The Northern California Center for the Alexander Technique to teach and train prospective Alexander teachers. Graduates from this program are eligible for certification by the American Society for the Alexander Technique. The training course is now located in Redwood City, California.

Mr. Lister maintains private teaching practices for individual students in San Francisco and Redwood City, California. His practice includes Alexander students who are performing artists, teachers and coaches from the San Francisco Opera, the Metropolitan Opera, Stanford University, San Francisco State University and the University of California, Berkeley. He numbers among his students Joan Baez, San Francisco Opera principle singers Nicolle Foland and Gregory Stapp, and Metropolitan Opera principle Malin Fritz. He conducts the symposium on the Alexander Technique for the Opera Arts Workshop of the San Francisco Girls' Chorus, and he and his wife the opera singer Sally Munro, have given workshops on voice and the Alexander Technique at the East Sussex Academy of Music in Lewis, England, the San Francisco Girls' Chorus and the Baroque Choral Guild. Mr. Lister is a regular visiting teacher at The Constructive Teaching Centre, an Alexander teacher training program in London. He also works with young actors as a visiting Alexander teacher in the Master of Fine Arts program theater department at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Mr. Lister’s articles on the Alexander Technique are frequently published in the American Society for the Alexander Technique newsletter – AmSAT News.

Prior to beginning his Alexander studies, George Lister was co founder, President and Chief Executive Officer of Contemporary Marketing Research Inc., a consumer marketing research company located in New York City. Along with his partners and staff CMR came to national prominence with such clients as Gillette, Mobil Oil (now Exxon/Mobil), General Electric and General Foods. Mr. Lister retired from the company in August, 1986 to pursue his studies of the Alexander Technique.

Sally Munro, mezzo-soprano is a native of London, England and a graduate of the Royal

Northern College of Music, Manchester, England. While living in England she sang with the English National Opera, Royal Opera de la Monnaie in Brussels, and as an oratorio soloist in Europe. She also performed with the BBC Singers on radio and television. She relocated to New York City where she was soloist with many choirs, her wide repertoire spanning Early Music to 20th century works.
Since moving to San Francisco, Ms. Munro has sung with Pocket Opera, Berkeley Opera, North Bay Opera, San Francisco Lyric Opera, Bear Valley Music Festival, Lake Tahoe Festival, and the San Francisco Opera. Her roles include Dorabella (Cosi Fan Tutte), Cherubino (Marriage of Figaro), Siebel (Faust), Tisbe (Cenerentola), Beppe (L'Amico Fritz), Emilia (Otello), Rosina (Barber of Seville), Adalgisa (Norma) and Charlotte (Werther).

Ms. Munro made her debut with the Oakland East Bay Symphony Orchestra as a soloist in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and performed the role of the Duchess in the American premier of the opera 'Powder Her Face' by Thomas Ades with Kent Nagano and the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra. She sang Pergolesi's Stabat Mater and Vivaldi's Magnificat with the San Francisco Russian Chamber Orchestra. She made her San Francisco Opera debut as the Beggar Woman in Benjamin Britten's 'Death in Venice' and as a Bridesmaid in Mozart's 'Marriage of Figaro'.

Ms. Munro's recent concertizing includes recitals with the San Francisco Lyric Quartet and the Capriccio Quartet as well as solo concerts in the Bay Area, New York City and London.
In the spring of 2004 she gave a number of recitals in Cape Town South Africa and performed with the Cape Town University Orchestra. Ms Munro has taken part in several concerts with the Palo Alto Chamber Orchestra as soloist in Haydn’s Scena di Berenice which she repeated with Maestro Ben Simon and the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra in the Herbst Theater San Francisco and in Berkeley, California. She was the alto soloist in Handel’s Messiah with Master Works Chorale, and the Vivaldi Gloria in Oakland. In 2003 Ms Munro made her first visit to St Petersburg, Russia where she joined the Rimsky-Korsakov String Quartet in concerts as part of the Festival of White Nights. Since then she has forged a close relationship with the quartet giving concerts in St Petersburg, New York and The San Francisco Bay Area. During the 2005 tour in Russia she performed as soloist with The Chamber Orchestra of Novgrod and gave a solo recital in Archangel. In 2006 she sang with Orchestra Classic in St Petersburg.

She enjoys collaborating with contemporary composers and has premiered new works by Allen Shearer, David Irving, Marge Wheeler, Louise P. Canepa, and Peter Dyson. She also performs works of the noted British composer, Ian Venables. In September 2004, Ms. Munro and the acclaimed pianist Laura Dahl gave their first recital together as music directors of Music by the Mountain (www.musicbythemountain.com) a chamber music festival in Mt. Shasta, California. They performed a return recital in November which was televised and recorded for CD. Now looking ahead to a fourth year the Festival has become an established event for the community offering outreach programs to local schools and colleges. Ms. Munro has an extensive singing teaching practice in San Francisco where she is a faculty member of the San Francisco Girls' Chorus (www.sfgirlschorus.org) and a member of the National Association of Teachers of Singing (www.nats.org). She graduated from the Alexander Technique Institute of San Francisco in 1996 and is certified as a teacher by The American Society for the Alexander Technique. She specializes in teaching the use of the voice at The Northern California Center for the Alexander Technique.

Resumè
Click Here to view Sally Porter Munro's Resumè

Hear Sally Sing
All audio files are in MP3 format.

'Sleep' by Ivor Gurney - LISTEN/DOWNLOAD
'O del mio dolce ardor' by C.W. Gluck - LISTEN/DOWNLOAD
Robert Schwartz, Pianist

February 10th, 8:00 pm, Round Hill Country Club, Alamo, CA. An Opera Valentine; Annual Gala and Candlelight Dinner – San Francisco Opera guild, East Bay chapter

~Love is a Many Splendoured Thing concerts with The Sinfonietta of Oxted, UK.
Sally will be performing Poeme de l’Amour et de la Mer by Chausson, and seven folk songs by Manuel de Falla. All performances begin 7:30 pm.
Saturday, March 8th, The United Reformed Church, Bluehouse Lane, Oxted, Surrey, UK
Thursday, March 13th, St. James’ Church, 107 Piccadilly, London
Saturday, March 15th, Holy Trinity Church, 59 Southend Crescent Eltham, London.
This concert will be repeated.
Sunday, March 23rd at 5:00 pm, with the St. Petersburg State Philharmonic Orchestra, St. Petersburg, Russia.

Sunday, March 16th, 5:00 pm – Featured soloist with The English Concert Singers, Roy Wales conductor. St. Paul’s Church, Covent Garden, London. A selection from the 5 mystical songs by Vaughan Williams, and Crucifixion from the Hermit Songs by Samuel Barber.

Saturday, March 22nd – Soloist with The Rimsky Korsakov String Quartet chamber concert, St. Petersburg, Russia. Details to be announced.

Sunday, April 27th, 4:30 pm – Opera gala with The Cappricio Quartet, Main Post Chapel The Presidio, San Francisco, California.
Fund raiser for the interfaith center.

Our German Shepherd,
Max Detweiler, attends our classes regularly and has been an unfailing inspiration for good use.

Photo taken at Heart Lake, Mt. Shasta, CA