About Angelica

Marie Caruso (Artistic Director) stepped in to lead Angelica when its founder, Susan Ball, joined the Peace Corp. Marie is a native New Yorker and lives in Hastings-on Hudson. She teaches music and art history at St. Vincent Ferrer High School in New York City and directs an all-girl choir there, as well as three handbell choirs. Marie has performed with many vocal groups, including the New Calliope Singers and the New York University Collegium Musicum, with Director Alex Blachly. She is currently in the doctoral program at Teachers College, Columbia University. She is one of the founding members of Angelica.

Melanie Anderson grew up in Los Angeles. She studied classical voice at UCLA, where she won the Gladys Turk Vocal Competition. She has also studied renaissance ensemble singing in England with the Tallis Scholars.  Melanie currently sings with the Hudson Valley Singers and is the president of their board of directors. She has a master’s degree in clinical psychology and has worked as a freelance editor and writer. She currently works for Edward M. Weinstein Architecture. Melanie lives in Hastings-on-Hudson with her husband, daughter, three cats, and a cocker spaniel.

Charlotte Ford began choral singing at age 11 with an Episcopal choir of men and boys in upper Manhattan. At 18, she sang with a professional church choir in Manhattan.  She earned a B.A. in music and had her own piano studio for 15 years while raising her family.  She then earned an M.B.A. and C.P.A. for a change in career.  Charlotte has sung with the Canby Singers, Mannes Chamber Choir, and the Dessoff choirs. Charlotte, a life-long resident of New York City, lives in Manhattan. She has a passion for opera-going and horseback-riding.

Colleen Kiel hails from Wisconsin and is from a musical family. She has performed many types of music, including folk, rock, musical comedy, operetta, and classical. Recently she has acquired a love for singing jazz.  She has performed with the American Heritage Ensemble, Skylight Comic Opera, Waterford Ensemble, Westchester Chorale, as well as with various folk, rock, and jazz musicians. Colleen currently works as an interior designer and lives in Hastings-on-Hudson with her husband and two children.

Kathleen McClafferty worked as a biomedical engineer in Boston before moving to Manhattan to focus on music. She has performed in many genres, including classical, opera, musical theatre, jazz, folk, pop, and cabaret.  Favorite musical theatre and operetta roles include Anne (A Little Night Music, Boston Stage Troupe), Casilda (The Gondoliers, Festival Theatre),Rosa Bud (Mystery of Edwin Drood, Blue Hill Troupe, NYC), and Gwendolyn (Ernest, New Punctuation Army, NYC premiere). She has sung with the Tanglewood Festival Chorus for the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Boston Pops and with Blue Hill Troupe for the New York Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall. She has sung with Cerdorrion in NYC and was also a soloist at Italy’s Orvieto Musica Chamber Music Festival. She has performed in cabaret at the Duplex in NYC.

Susan Saslow has performed with several vocal groups, including the New Calliope Singers and Charis. A retired tenant attorney, she currently works as a publisher of English-as-a-foreign-language primary courses at Pearson Longman in White Plains. Susan lives in Katonah, New York, with her husband and daughters, Kate and Lauren.

Carolyn Summers has many “professional” singing credits, including a Grammy-award winning performance at Carnegie Hall and several Mostly Mozart festival appearances, all of which occurred after she retired from professional singing and joined the all-volunteer Dessoff Choirs.  Carolyn is a landscape architect and ardent conservationist. Carolyn lives in Hastings-on-Hudson with her husband and daughter. She is one of the founding members of Angelica.