2026 marks a momentous year for Brattleboro Harmonia. Not only are we celebrating our 30th Anniversary, but our founder and Musical Director, Becky Graber, will be passing her pitch pipe on to our next Musical Director, Anna Patton. Becky has been mentoring Anna on directing this large, beautiful chorus since fall of 2024. The singers have marveled and fallen in love with their camaraderie and watching Anna’s incredible leadership and musical talents grow and flourish as director. Read on to learn more about these two incredible musical leaders!
Becky Graber
Becky founded the Brattleboro Women’s Chorus in 1996. It marked a turning point for her. She moved away from a touring life-style and chose a more settled pathway that worked better for her young children. In the chorus, Becky sought and found a way to combine artistry with ongoing relationships; the chorus gave her musical imagination room to grow and deepen, one concert season at a time. The weekly rehearsals, twice annual concert weekends with guest musicians, and camaraderie of the singers continue to support and nourish her creative spark.
Becky moved to Brattleboro after graduation from Colgate University in 1977, and Brattleboro has seemed like home ever since. When she first moved to town, Becky played french horn in the Brattleboro Brass Band, composed music, and accompanied many local musical and theater productions.
She had a 10 year visit to the Portsmouth NH area, another wonderful place to live, but she came back to Brattleboro with husband Tim Ellis, and they raised their children Sarah and Jacob here. While living in Brattleboro, Becky has been employed (at various times) as a piano teacher, storyteller, elementary school music teacher, church musician, and a musical theater director.
Over the years, Becky has worked regularly with many too many schools, churches, and libraries to name! She also directed Animaterra Women’s Chorus in Keene until Covid closed the chorus down.
These days, Becky once again teaches piano to young children at the Brattleboro Music Center; she leads singalongs and glee clubs at local senior and day care facilities; she sings alto with “Big Woods Voices” and soprano with the Hallowell singers; she is the accompanist for the Brattleboro Concert Choir, and she still delights in leading the Brattleboro Women’s Chorus! In her retirement she will also continue to lead the newly-founded Good Trouble Street Choir, which sprouted from the need to sing in community at protests and beyond.
For more information on Becky’s programs, visit her website at: www.beckygraber.com
Anna Patton
Anna grew up singing and playing with her musical family in Northern Vermont, learning songs from her parents and grandparents from Motown to Mozart, Shape-note to Barbershop. In her teens she joined the world-polyphony choruses Village Harmony and Northern Harmony as a singer/clarinetist and spent many weeks and sometimes months on the road with these groups touring the US, Canada, and Europe.
Looking to get a little more rooted in a place in her 20’s, Anna gravitated to Brattleboro VT for its vibrant music scene and wound up studying at Marlboro College, staying busy on the weekends with the wealth of community singing, jamming, and dancing in the area. After college, the Vermont Jazz Center invited her to join their faculty by starting a vocal ensemble, and she began the choir now known as The Soubrettes, singing Anna’s swing- and gospel-inflected close-harmony arrangements.
Anna has a lifelong interest in learning and teaching music by ear. Besides studying oral traditions like fiddle tunes and folk songs, she also completed a Masters of Music at New England Conservatory in a department that focuses heavily on aural skills. She is a sought-after performer and leader of workshops on topics like “finding vocal harmonies” and “playing tunes for social dancing.” She plays clarinet with Zara Bode’s Little Big Band and travels with Contradance and English Country Dance bands such as Topspin and Murmuration. Anna also writes original music for these projects and for other groups including Brattleboro Harmonia, Social Band, Northern Harmony, and her quartet Doozy Jane.
Anna began to work with Brattleboro Harmonia in 2024 as a guest director, collaborating with founding director Becky Graber. Becky will retire in May of this year and Anna feels very grateful to have this period of mentorship and collaboration before she becomes the sole musical director in the fall of 2026. She loves the creativity of planning a program of music, loves the rhythm of the weekly rehearsals and seasonal concerts, and is excited to get to know the community better year by year. Looking forward, she is thrilled that she will be in this role of helping to continue this strong, fun, and big-hearted community of song.
For more information on Anna’s many talents, visit her website at: www.annapatton.com