Our Story

Photo by David Murray

Portsmouth Pro Musica is dedicated to providing an enriching musical experience to both our members and audiences through the scholarship and presentation of diverse professional-level choral repertoire. The chorus is well-known throughout the Seacoast for the warmth and energy of its sound, adventurous programming and excellent musicianship. Concerts are presented with attention to detail, precision and accuracy of interpretation. PPM aims to share with its audiences the beauty and variety of choral literature. The chorus draws its voices from the greater Seacoast area, including New Hampshire, southern Maine, and northern Massachusetts. You will truly be enriched, as we are, by becoming part of this wonderful music community at our concerts.

Photo by David Murray

Priscilla Stevens French, founding Artistic Director of Portsmouth Women’s Chorus for 21 seasons, led the transformation of PWC into a new mixed chorus, Portsmouth Pro Musica, in the spring of 2006. Priscilla earned a B.A. from Beloit College and received her Master’s degree in Choral Conducting from the New England Conservatory of Music studying under Lorna Cooke deVaron. She spent her junior year at Manchester College, Oxford, England, studying organ and musicology.

Prior to moving to New Hampshire in 1985, Priscilla was chairman of the Music Department at Spence School in New York City. While living in New York she studied conducting with Amy Kaiser. She has served as past president of the New Hampshire chapter of the American Choral Directors Association and Eastern Division chairman for women’s choirs.

Priscilla is proud of her many achievements with the PWC Chorus:

• A multimedia presentation of “Song of Survival” at The Music Hall (1995)
• A ten-day concert tour to England (1998)
• One of twelve auditioned choirs invited to perform at the Eastern Division AC DA Convention in Baltimore, Md. (2000)
• PWC’s 20^th anniversary concert at The Music Hall, including a commissioned work by Vermont composer Gwyneth Walker (2005)

And with the PPM chorus:

• Conducting at SummerSings.  Priscilla has conducted at the Great Waters Music Festival Summer Sings in Wolfeboro, N.H., 2004–2007, the Nashua Choral Society Sing in 2009, and the Paul Madore Summer Sings in Salem, MA in 2011 and 2012.
• Co-producing annual Messiah Sing. Priscilla co-produced the annual Messiah-Sing at The Music Hall with Wendell Purrington for a decade.
• Leading 21 singers on tour to Central Europe in 2015.  Priscilla led a touring version of PPM, consisting of 21 singers, on a tour of Central Europe in the summer of 2015.  The tour included performances in churches and cathedrals in Budapest, Bratislava, Vienna and Prague.

Since founding Portsmouth Pro Musica in 2006, Priscilla has conducted several masterworks from the mixed chorus repertory: Charpentier, Midnight Mass for Christmas;  Arnesen, Wound in the Water; Bernstein, Chichester Psalms; Brahms, A German Requiem; Barnett, The World Beloved:  A Bluegrass Mass; Britten, Rejoice in the Lamb; Dvorak, Mass in D Major; Haydn, Creation and Missa Brevis; Mendelssohn, Elijah; Mozart, Requiem and Coronation Mass; Thompson, A Peaceable Kingdom; Handel, Coronation Anthems; Purcell, Dido and Aeneas; Poulenc, Gloria; Puccini, Messa di Gloria; Bach, Christmas Oratorio and Cantata #140; Rutter, Gloria and Feel the Spirit; Vivaldi, Dixit Dominus; Karl Jenkins, The Armed Man; Orff, Carmina Burana for the group’s 25th anniversary concerts in 2010. 

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