David is widely recognized for his outstanding choral ensembles. With 40 years of professional conducting experience, he has conducted numerous performances featuring choirs of over 100 voices with full orchestras, and also directs ensembles of select voices performing music in traditional, contemporary and various ethnic styles. His choirs have been featured at both national and regional American Choral Directors Association conventions and on national television. He leads conferences and seminars across the nation in choral and church music and is widely recognized as an outstanding director who displays exceptional skill and insightful musical interpretation, challenging and inspiring singers, instrumentalists and conductors. David earned his Master’s Degree in Choral Music in 1973 at the University of Southern California, while studying with the acclaimed director Dr. Charles C. Hirt. In 2003 David received a Doctor of Ministry Degree from the University of Creation Spirituality in Oakland. He is also a Music Professor at Merritt College in Oakland.

Born and raised in Los Angeles, David began piano studies at age four and remaining deeply involved in music ever since. He accompanied and sang in choirs at school and church from age 8. With the instruction and support of many of the finest choral and church musicians in the nation, David secured his first church music position at age 19 and founded his first community chorus, Firebranders. After completing his music degrees at USC, he moved to the Bay Area in 1974 to establish the Oakland Youth Chorus. Under his leadership, the group's membership grew to over 130 students by its second season. David served twelve years as Minister of Music at First Presbyterian Church of Berkeley, and in 1999 concluded a nine-year tenure at Lafayette-Orinda Presbyterian Church, establishing well-renowned, highly successful music programs at each. He has presented numerous major works with full orchestra to Bay Area audiences and has directed hundreds of children, youth and adults, presenting concerts, musicals and leading local, national and international musical tours. The common thread that David Morales inspires in each of his choirs is the expression of music with sensitivity, passion and conviction - music that reflects the depth of feelings of those singing. Above all else, people (both singers and listeners) become the focus, not merely their voices.

Now beginning his twenty-third season with Cantare, David Morales continues to delight audiences with performances of uncompromising quality and beauty. His mission is perhaps best captured in his own words: "It is rewarding to bring people together to perform the music, to experience a sense of community and sharing. Music can convey a message that goes beyond spoken words which puts us deeply in touch with what we believe, what we feel and who we are. We can't be quite as eloquent without it."

Michael has worked for more than 25 years as a director, producer, arts administrator and educator. He spent thirteen years as the Producing Director of New York's acclaimed Roundabout Theatre Company. His production of Athol Fugard's The Blood Knot launched Danny Glover's powerful career and his production of John Osborne's Look Back In Anger, with Malcolm McDowell, inaugurated the Showtime on Broadway cable TV series. While building and leading this premier arts institution he pioneered a pilot arts education program in the New York City public schools, teaming teachers with performing artists in core curriculum instruction.

In 1990 Michael Fried founded Public Interest TV Films, devoted to producing educational films, television and videos on public and cultural issues. He has produced numerous documentaries on a wide array of subjects. From 1991 to 1994 Michael also served as a founding Producing Director of Eco-Rap, an acclaimed Bay Area multicultural environmental arts education program for inner city youth and young adults. The program toured throughout the United States.

Michael is the recipient of grant awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, and awards from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Southern Humanities Media Fund, the California Council for the Humanities, Creative Work Fund, the Mississippi Humanities Council, the Missouri Humanities Council, the North Carolina Humanities Council, the Texas Council for the Humanities and the New York State Arts Council.

In 2001, with the support of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., Michael started a pioneering mentoring and training program for gifted ‘disabled’ students and individuals who dreamt of working in film and media. He is the co-founder of California’s first Disability Media Center recognized by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Michael Fried was the first Executive Director of the Victor Pineda Foundation, the first social venture organization dedicated to using media communications on behalf of disability as an international human rights and development issue. With the support of the United Nations and the World Bank he managed pilot programs in Bosnia, Norway, Serbia and Thailand.

Most recently he has served as the Executive Producer for several nationally broadcast PBS films.

Michael Fried has worked with the Clinton White House’s One America Initiative on Race and Reconciliation, the St. Louis Symphony, the Oakland Symphony, the Women’s Philharmonic, Festival at the Lake and the New Orleans Heritage and Jazz Festival, among many other worthy social and cultural projects.

“I am proud to join David Morales in guiding Cantare Con Vivo. Music is the great universal language. It has a unique power to transform lives and to unite people in our shared humanity.”

Music played an important role in Julie’s life growing up in Lafayette, California, where she benefited from outstanding school music programs while studying the flute. While earning a Bachelor of Music at Northwestern University, she began teaching music to children in inner-city Chicago and working as a Teaching Artist for the Chicago Symphony. These opportunities developed Julie’s love for working with children and for helping them discover the positive difference music can make in their lives.

She earned a Master’s degree in Music Education at Holy Names University in Oakland where she specialized in the Kodály philosophy of music education, which places singing as the most important foundation for musical development. Julie also holds Level One certification from the Choral Music Experience Institute and completed graduate seminars in Choral Conducting with Rodney Eichenberger and at the University of Michigan with Jerry Blackstone.

Erika earned her Bachelor’s degree from San Francisco State University in Classical Piano Performance, and in July 2007, she completed Level II certification in the Kodály Summer Institute at Holy Names University in Oakland.

Erika grew up in a musical family, starting piano at age 5, and has remained actively involved in choral music, musical theatre, and other forms of musical expression ever since. She also currently sings alongside her parents in the Cantare Chorale. Having been the recipient of many wonderful music programs as a child, she is thrilled to be able to give something of value back to her community.

DeMore was a California Artist in Residence with the Oakland Youth Chorus for 10 years and has received an award from the Music Educators National Conference for her work with young singers and artists. She is on the music faculty at St. Paul's School in Oakland, CA where she teaches a cappella singing. DeMore was also a founding member of the Grammy nominated, critically-acclaimed vocal ensemble 'Linda Tillery and the Cultural Heritage Choir', a group that tours extensively in the US and abroad. DeMore traces her interest in music to her parents who started one of the first Black theater groups in Alaska in the early 60's. DeMore majored in music at Incarnate Word CUniversity in San Antonio, Texas, and later worked as a studio musician, was a member of a melodrama company, sang in an all women's Black a cappella group Scintilla, sang for commercials and wrote music for the theater. DeMore describes her music as “in the African-American folk tradition of Odetta,” to whom she has often been compared, noting, “I have a very, very, very low voice.” She has shared the stage with numerous artists including Buffy Saint Marie, John Prine, Josh White, Jr., Laura Nyro, Sweet Honey in the Rock and Pete Seeger.

Music has taken Bryan around the world to several different countries including Japan, Switzerland & Jamaica and alongside such artist as Al Green, Michael McDonald and Bonnie Raitt.

His talents are in a high demand as he performs with as many as 8 different groups at a time. Some of the groups he currently performs with include SoVoSo, Slammin All-Body Band, Chelle! and Friends, Rankin' Scroo & Ginger and Linda Tillery and the Cultural Heritage Choir.

Annie loves teaching music and says: “When I was in third grade I decided I wanted to be a music teacher, mostly because I was crazy about my piano teacher and wanted to be just like her. I never changed my mind and got my degree in Music Education at Crane School of Music, State University of New York in Potsdam, New York. I spent the next twenty years teaching K-6 vocal and instrumental music in public schools in New York and California. At that point, I thought I was retiring, but within a year or so, found myself teaching preschool music classes.

"I am delighted to be part of the Cantare outreach team. The best times in my life are my experiences of making music with children."”

As a member of Los Angeles' Mariachi Los Camperos de Nati Cano, she recorded and toured throughout the United States and Mexico, performing in venues such as New York's Lincoln Center, Berkeley's Zellerbach Hall and Guadalajara's Teatro Degollado. Arwen has studied regional Mexican dance with teachers in both the U.S. and Mexico, and performed with several Ballet Folklórico groups such as Ballet Folklórico Ollin in Los Angeles and Ensambles Ballet Folklórico de San Francisco.

She earned her Masters in Music Education at Holy Names University in Oakland, specializing in the use of traditional music in the elementary classroom. Arwen currently works for the East Bay Center for the Performing Arts in Richmond, where she teaches young children in the Center’s outreach program and teaches singing and dance to older students in the Center’s Diploma Program. Arwen is a member of Cascada de Flores, a professional music ensemble dedicated to the exploration, preservation and dissemination of Mexican and Cuban regional music and dance.

Now in the San Francisco Bay Area, he is an indispensable part of the Bay Area's Flamenco community. He has been part of notable groups such as Fuego Vivo (Flamenco music and dance), and the quintet Potaje, which explores the musical bridges between Spain and Cuba. He is the musical director and guitarist of Virginia Iglesia's Flamenco Dance Company and is also held in high regard as one of the Bay Area's finest treseros (Cuban tres), as a result of his tenure with the Orquesta La Moderna Tradición.

Jorge teaches music to children and adults in the San Francisco Bay Area. Jorge is a member of Cascada de Flores, a professional music ensemble dedicated to the exploration, preservation and dissemination of Mexican and Cuban regional music and dance.

Carol has been instrumental in encouraging the Lafayette School District to expand their music program for fourth and fifth grade students. She is a trained California Mentor teacher. Carol graduated from San Francisco State University and has earned Level I Certification at the Kodály Summer Institute at Holy Names University. She also teaches piano privately, and works as a certified lifeguard and CPR instructor.

Lydia has her masters from Holy Names University in Music Education with an emphasis in Kodály and has been teaching music for K-6 for the past 6 years. In 2003, Lydia co-authored “Mariposa Vuela,” a collection of children’s songs in Spanish for parents and teachers. She continues to work on the development of repertoire in Spanish for use with native Spanish speakers. In June of 2008, Lydia co-taught a three day Kodály training workshop in Puerto Rico, and this past year she travelled to Peru in January and to Puerto Rico again in June to teach Kodály training workshops.

A graduate of UCLA and Hastings College of Law, Kathy quit the practice of law in 1988 to raise her two children, but she’ll never stop singing! She joined the staff of Cantare in the fall of 2005.