A life in tune with the art of song

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A life in tune with the art of song

For as long as she can remember, Reagan Stone’s life has revolved around the art of singing.

A cantor for the past five years at St. Aidan Church in Williston Park, Stone said she started singing in a church choir when she was in first grade, and she’s never stopped. 

“I love it. I couldn’t imagine myself doing anything else,” she said. 

When she’s not singing at St. Aidan or leading the Angel Choir of grade schoolers there, she gives voice lessons. 

A Mineola resident, Stone spends most of her time teaching in a private Manhattan studio on 7th Avenue and she also gives voice lessons in a studio in her house.

On Feb. 23, she organized her latest benefit for St. Aidan in Bishop Kirwin Hall with a program of Broadway tunes in which she performed along with many of her voice students. She’s been doing the St. Aidan benefits to raise money for the church since 2008.

“It started as something that was a nice opportunity for my kids to sing. You can teach kids to sing, but you can’t teach them to perform,” Stone said. “I’m proud like I would be if they were one of my own kids.”

She also started the Angel Choir of St. Aidan school students in first through third grades four years ago, with her own early church choir experience in mind. Her daughter, Lucy, is one of the angels, singing at the same age he mother was when she began her musical journey. 

For the past two years, Stone has also conducted a weeklong summer choir camp for young St. Aidan students.

A native of North Carolina, Stone attended the School of Arts in North Carolina, concentrating on piano lessons and voice. But she knew she wanted to be a singer.

“I felt I was pretty good at it and I liked doing it,” Stone said.

After earning a bachelor of arts degree in music, she worked for a masters degree in opera at the Hartt School in Hartford, Conn. She later became an artist in residence there as an opera singer.

Stone worked in the Connecticut Opera Company from 1992 to 1998. Apart from the opera company’s normal performances, it conducted an outreach program to inner city schools. Sometimes, she said, she remembers entering those schools with armed escorts to perform for students who had probably never listened to an aria, let alone seen an opera.

“You release the ability to become a glamorous star. But you know you’re reaching them,”  Stone said.

She eventually made the transition to performing in musical theater when she auditioned for a summer stock production of “Carousel” and played Judy Jordan, the show’s female lead. 

She then started taking voice lessons for the next 15 years in Manhattan from Marianne Challis, a teacher she knew from the University of Hartford. Challis died last August, but Stone keeps her memory alive by passing on what she was taught to her own students and practicing those lessons herself.

“She took me under her wing. I’ve been teaching her methods,” she said. “I honor her memory by being a good teacher and a good singer.” 

And she remained on the same course, landing a part in a production of “Phantom of the Opera” in Bridgeport. She’s worked in musicals in Maine, Wisconsin and West Virginia and her credits include performing in a national tour of “Showboat”.

Her first job singing in a church was in Connecticut and she appreciated the steady nature of the work.

“It’s a nice gig to have,” she said.

Stone has also been the music director for Summerstage at St. Aidan, working with veteran director John Hayes in coaching high school students since Hayes resurrected that summer theater program two years ago. She said she sees them mature as people and actors in dealing with emotions beyond their life experience and issues they may not have addressed before.

Last summer, they performed “South Pacific,” which includes story lines of complex love relationships in a show that takes the issue of racism on in the song “You Have To Be Carefully Taught.”

“It’s an interesting thing to ask a group of teenagers to express themselves,” she said. “I learn a lot from these kids each summer.” 

This summer, she’ll be working with the students on a production of “Hello Dolly.”

The St. Aidan Angel Choir will be performing a “Mad Hatter Tea Party” Disney Revue of tunes on April 14 at 4 p.m. in Kirwin Hall to raise money for the Parents Acting for Catholic Education, the St. Aidan parent association.

Stone’s next fundraising performance will be in “Chasin’ the Blues Away,” featuring her and three other singers in a benefit for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS in memory of Marianne Challis at Don’t Tell Mama on March 11 and 15 at 7 p.m.

For more information about Stone and the vocal training she offers is available at reaganstone.com

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