by Richard Gray
At St. John’s, we are fortunate to have eight professional staff singers who serve as leaders within our choir. The combination of their musical skills, reliability, and spirit raises the quality of the music that we offer and contributes to creating a supportive and collaborative environment. We have been featuring brief bios of our staff singers so our congregation can come to know even more about these wonderful leaders within our music ministry.
Phill Takemura Sears has sung as a bass/baritone with St. John’s choir since the beginning of 2019 and has sung with Minnesota Opera since 2018 when he moved here with his partner Julia. Several of our church and choir members enjoy seeing Phill in performances at the Ordway for the opera! Phill holds a Master in Music Performance from Boston University where he studied with the late Dr. Jerrold Pope. Able to effortlessly switch between tenor and baritone, Phill has helped premier new operatic works such as Puckett’s The Fix as Ben Short and Prestini’s Edward Tulane as “Tuna”/Drifter/Doll. He has recently performed in Minnesota Opera’s La Bohème as the Venditore di Maroni.
