When it was time for Kerry Krebill to pursue her master’s degree in 1977, she knew she wanted it to be in choral conducting. She wrote letters to conductors all over the country, and they all essentially told her the same thing: you should go for your doctorate. That was, after all, how one went about teaching at the university level. But she didn’t want to teach conducting, she wanted to do it. So, she continued her search.
Now, almost 50 years later, the longtime Clancy resident has made a career of conducting, including at her latest performance: Musikanten Montana’s A Concert for All Souls, on Nov. 3 in Helena. Krebill has not only proven herself as a world-class conductor, but for nearly 20 years she’s shown that Montana can be a home for equally world-class choral performance.
Because female conductors are few and far between, and Krebill’s first name is gender-neutral, these letters were often addressed “Dear Mr. Krebill.” This didn’t deter her, and she eventually met nationally recognized conductor Robert Shafer. He was directing at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington D.C., where Krebill lived at the time.
“I liked that he was in my own town, someone I could learn from,” Krebill said.
Shafer appealed to Krebill as a mentor because he shared her attention to detail toward the choir’s sound. She admired how he took the time to fix things that didn’t sound quite right.
It took about a year of convincing him, but Krebill eventually became his student and earned her master’s degree at the Catholic University of America. Much of her degree was spent studying with him and doing hands-on work as his assistant.
Before moving to Clancy in 2002 to become the chorale director for the Helena Symphony Orchestra, Krebill had a prolific career as a choral conductor in Washington for 25 years.
She conducted the Alexandria Choral Society for 19 seasons, founded Musikanten in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1979, and was the choral director for Musica Antiqua and the Congressional Chorus of the United States. She’s also held several university and church positions in the nation’s capital and has directed choral ensembles internationally at least once a year since 1989.
When Krebill came to Montana, she quickly realized that although there were seven orchestras in the state, they only performed once or twice a year—a Christmas concert and then maybe another concert. “There’s so much music that wasn’t being done,” she said. She wanted to show her new fellow Montana residents what they were missing.
“My talent is in repertoire and … finding cool things and programs to do,” Krebill said. “Doing music that no one else does.”
In 1992, under Krebill’s direction, the Alexandria (Virginia) Choral Society won the first award ever given to a chorus by the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers for Adventuresome Programming. Krebill said she wasn’t trying to do adventurous music when the chorus won the award.
The first Helena Choral Week was held in June 2004. “I invited people from D.C. to show them I wasn’t nuts for moving here, and to show people here the different music they can do,” Krebill said.
The event was not only packed with choral concerts, but also offered lessons, choral history, and other social meetings throughout the week. The first festival was such a success that many wanted to do it again, making Helena Choral Week somewhat of a choral fixture in Helena.
Krebill founded the choir Musikanten Montana shortly after, in September 2004. Musikanten means musicians in German, and Krebill used the same word for the Montana group as the original one in Baltimore.
Beyond the Choral Week, Musikanten Montana’s season usually includes the Concert for All Souls in November, The Traditional Festival of Nine Advent Lessons and Carols around Christmastime, and the Montana Early Music Festival in the spring.
This year, Musikanten Montana’s A Concert for All Souls looked different than it had it years past. For one thing, all the singers wore masks and were required to be vaccinated. Because of this, three of the choir’s members didn’t sing because they chose not to be vaccinated.
The first rehearsal of this year’s Concert for All Souls on Sept. 7 was the first time Musikanten Montana had sung together in a year and a half. The last time was on March 7, 2020. Krebill said after so much time had passed, everyone looked different. “You didn’t recognize them, their hair was different, some gained weight, some lost weight. There were four or five new people,” Krebill said.
The concert took place on Nov. 3. Normally, the concert is performed twice at two different churches on the first and second of the month, All Saints Day and All Souls Day. But due to scheduling issues, Nov. 3 was as close as they could get.
After not singing for so long, the choir had two months before the concert to prepare. This year, Krebill decided the choir would sing “Selig sind die Toten, SWV 391” before a list of submitted names of people who died this year were chanted, and Maurice Duruflé’s “Requiem, Op. 9” after.
In English, “Selig sind die Toten” means “blessed are the dead”—appropriate for the concert. And many choirs are singing requiems right now, according to Krebill. In music, requiems are musical compositions that are related to death and mourning, even if they aren’t religious.
Krebill says requiems are a popular choice for choirs right now because of how many people have died in the past two years. Another difference from previous years: Usually there are about 100 names of the deceased sent to Krebill to be sung at the concert; this year, Krebill said, there were 165, and many of them came from people who were singing in the concert.
The most important thing to Krebill about the concert, more than the quality of the sound, was that no one got sick. “My goal is that on Nov. 4, everybody is still alive,” Krebill said. “Everything else is just gravy.”
Perhaps the most remarkable achievement of Krebill’s career isn’t all the concerts she’s successfully held, the awards she’s received or the recognition of her talents, but the relationships she has forged with choral singers and other conductors.
Because the risk of COVID still looms, some members of Musikanten Montana chose not to sing, according to Krebill. However, she’s built such a large network of singers who enjoy working with her that she was able to bring in singers from across the country: friends and colleagues who respect her and love working with her.
Two of these friends, Evanne Browne and John Butterfield, who have known her for 38 and 32 years, respectively, came up from Boulder, Colorado, to sing in the concert.
Neither of them had been in Krebill’s All Souls Concert before, but they make a point to sing with her at least once a year. They’ve been on international tours with her to Buenos Aires, Argentina; Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina; and Venice, Italy, and love working with her.
“Kerry is just this incredible, energetic woman who has this vision and goes after it,” Browne said.
Browne, who is also a conductor and sings in various choirs, said that while most conductors hire people to make travel and housing arrangements for big shows, Krebill does it all herself. She’s the travel agent, she books the hotels, and for things she can’t do herself, like publicity and programs, she finds people who can. “She’s not doing it because she has this big ego, but because she loves the music and the people.”
Butterfield said that one of the remarkable things about singing with Krebill is the adventure she brings.
“Magical things happen,” he said. “I think we’re just looking forward to singing with her again,”
And although Krebill’s not exactly sure what the future holds, singing will probably be part of it.
“It’s all I do, it’s all I’ve ever done, and we need it.”
