Live with Lunch welcomes philosophical singer

Sydney Keegan, mezzo-soprano, and pianist Helen Lauritzen are featured for Music Live with Lunch at noon Tuesday, Jan. 18, at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, 525 N. Fifth Ave., Sequim.

The duo will perform songs by Schubert, Debussy, Faure, Vaughn Williams and other composers.

Keegan has bachelor’s degrees in vocal performance and philosophy and master’s degrees in philosophy and historical musicology from the University of Washington.

She sang with the Seattle Gilbert & Sullivan Society, the Thalia Chamber Singers, the St. Mark’s Cathedral choir, the Port Angeles Community Chorus, solo and with groups around the peninsula.

In 1978 Keegan founded the Victorian Chamber Singers, which merged in 2009 with Port Townsend’s RainShadow Chorale.

She continues to teach voice and theory in Port Hadlock and for the past nine years has taught philosophy for the Bard College/Jefferson County Clemente Course, a course in the humanities for low-income adults.

Lauritzen received her bachelor’s in music and her master’s in education from Stanford University with focus in choral conducting and piano performance.

She has taught junior high school music, directed church and community choirs, played chamber music and served as an accompanist.

In 1983, she became the founding director of the Seattle Peace Chorus, a 50-voice mixed choir that traveled internationally on missions of citizen diplomacy.

Lauritzen has sung with RainShadow Chorale and accompanied many local singers and instrumentalists since moving to Port Townsend in 2000.

Music Live with Lunch is a concert series held on the third Tuesday of each month through May with a half-hour concert followed by a hot lunch. Concerts start at noon with lunch at 12:30 p.m.

Cost is $10 with tickets available at the church, which is open 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday-Thursday and 9 a.m.-noon Friday. A portion of ticket sales is given to Sequim charities.

Call 683-4862 or Ray and Carolyn Braun at 452-0495 for more information.