Rockingham Choral Society

Artistic Staff- Music Director Kristofer Johnson

Music Director Kristofer Johnson

is the Chair of the Department of Music and Director of Choirs at Phillips Exeter Academy where he holds the Michael V. Forrestal ’45 Chair for Music. At PEA, he conducts the Concert Choir and Choral Union as well as coaching and performing vocal chamber music with students. From 2010-2019 Kris served as music director of Concord Chorale (Concord, NH). Kris has a reputation for developing choral sound and expressive performances while fostering community and devotion to the choral art. A champion of new composition, he has overseen the commissioning and premieres of many works for choirs. Student and adult choruses under his baton have toured in the United States, Great Britain, Latvia, Estonia, the Russian Federation, Croatia, Bosnia & Herzegovina,
Austria, the People’s Republic of China, Vietnam, and Hong Kong.

Kris holds a Bachelor of Music degree in vocal performance from Oberlin College Conservatory of Music and a Master of Music in choral conducting from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. He is an active tenor soloist and choral/vocal clinician. A career educator, Kris has taught on the faculties of the Blair School of Music (Vanderbilt University), Plymouth State University, Oberlin Conservatory’s Vocal Academy for High School Students, Proctor Academy, and Canterbury School. Singers from his voice studio have won regional and national singing competitions and have been accepted into many of the country’s leading voice performance programs.

Artistic Staff- Collaborative Pianist, Jeannie Goodwin

Jeannie F. Goodwin graduated with a B.S. in Music Education from the University of New Hampshire. She now maintains an active piano studio in her home where she has worked with students of all ages, although she now specializes in adults. Active in the Music Teacher’s National Association, she has served on state, division and national levels. She has also been active in church music, founding several vocal and hand bell choirs at her Congregational Church in Dover, New Hampshire. She is a professional accompanist, and especially enjoys her work with the Rockingham Choral Society. Ms. Goodwin and her husband are avid sailors and have cruised their sailboat “Sea Natural” on the East Coast from Nova Scotia to the Bahamas.