General Manager Cathy Keel

Cathy Keel, General Manager and Co-Founder of the Sylvan Chorale, was born and raised in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.  She graduated from Central Dauphin High School and received a Bachelor of Science Degree in Social Studies and Education from Elizabethtown College.   History and Music have always been her first loves and she sang in choruses from elementary school forward.  She learned to play a violin, taking lessons for a time from Harold Jauss, who was, at one time, the concertmaster for the Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra and then from Margaret Schmidt who was a member of the Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra.  Cathy played in the Dauphin County Orchestra for a few years and was concertmaster of the new Central Dauphin H.S. Orchestra in her senior year.  She also played violin in her freshman year at Elizabethtown College in the newly formed E-Town College Orchestra.  On graduating from college, she joined the choir at St. Margaret Mary Church in Harrisburg where she has continued to sing until 2010 when she took over as director from the retiring director, Lou D’Augostine.  During these years the church presented a variety of musicals such as The Sound of Music, Fiddler on the Roof, Oliver, The King and I and Cathy performed and sang in the chorus in those musicals.  Cathy also sings in the opera chorus for Capitol Opera Harrisburg.    Always enjoying opportunities in the past to have choirs join together from local churches to present concert programs, she used that idea to help create the Sylvan Chorale.