In many of our shows, images are an important part of the storytelling. For this show, many of the tellers used images to share that moment in time where their life changed dramatically, from a young couple waiting for their first child to arrive, to the last picture before leaving a very rural home for college.
Chris Hess
Singer (with Rip Jackson on keyboard)
Chris Hess is the least employed person in a Lexington household that includes his wife Jennifer and daughters Sophie and Sky. He sings in the First Parish choir and hopes to be a mediocre pianist someday. Realizing that his kids’ schooling has ignored entire categories of information relevant to successful adulting, Chris has started a vlog called “The Awesome Room: Pro Tips for Grownups” at www.theawesomeroom.com.
Play “This is the Moment“
Brenda Prusak
Storyteller
Brenda Prusak has been a teacher at the elementary and secondary level for many years. She enjoys gardening, teaching yoga, and writing with friends. In the eighties she and her husband adopted two children from Korea. Brenda and Larry are long time members of First Parish church. They have lived in Lexington for forty years.
Lisa Maria Steinberg
Storyteller
Lisa Maria Andreoli Steinberg has worked in churches for over 25 years, first as a musician
and then as a religious educator. As a graduate student, she studied at Starr King School for the Ministry in Berkeley, CA and at Andover Newton Theological School in Newton Centre, MA where she graduated with an M.A. in Theology and the Arts with concentrations in education and music. Lisa Maria has served the First Parish in Lexington as Director of Lifespan Religious Education since 2015.
Chelsea Cannon
Singer
Chelsea has been attending First Parish since she was very young, and joined the Sanctuary Choir in the fall of 2017. At Lexington High School she sang in chorus and performed in plays and musicals. She is an LHS Class of 2018 graduate and is attending UMass Amherst where she is studying musical theater.
Jim Jones & Deborah Yardley Beers
Storytellers (with apologies for poor quality of the captured image)
Jim was past president of the North American Rock Garden Society. He has done extensive garden writing, including three books. He worked on the staff at MIT as a radiation protection physicist. At First Parish, he served as Chair of the Worship Committee, and many others. Deborah, a past solo pianist with five different symphony orchestras, now serves on the piano faculty of Rivers School Conservatory and as Artist Teacher in piano at the Cambridge Music Consortium. She has written music described as “eloquent” by composers Libby Larsen, a Grammy Award winner, and Matthew Aucoin. She is a long-term member of First Parish and has contributed many performances to Sunday services.
Don Yansen
Storyteller
Don was a serial high tech startup denizen for many years, then switched to international development, focusing primarily on smartphone- enabled public health solutions in Africa and India. He has held many different jobs, from King Crab fisherman, cattle ranch hand, rocket scientist to tree surgeon and carpenter — some more successful than others. He quit college for a year and started the band “The New World Singers” in Los Angeles.
Amy Johnson
(duet with Chelsea Cannon)
Singer
Amy became a member of First Parish and the Sanctuary Choir in 2018. She began singing only one year before that but quickly became a favorite soloist for the congregation and choir. She is grateful to be able to share her love of music with the First Parish community, whose support, kindness, and inspiration have brought so much joy and healing to her heart. (She asked not to post the videos of one of her solos for Voices so it is not available but this super duet with Chelsea Cannon is here).
Paul Brouillette
Storyteller
Paul Brouillette was born in Winchendon, a small town in North-Central Massachusetts, and raised in a Catholic conservative family. Now a recov- ering Catholic and proud snowflake, he works as a Grant Administrator at McLean Hospital and lives in Arlington with his 16-year-old son Joel and their 6-year-old cat Barnaby. Although Paul has been singing and telling stories since childhood, it is only in recent years that he began to find his true voice.
Amy Kvaal
Storyteller
Amy is an early childhood educator whose passion is bringing artistic and creative joy to the lives of children. Amy comes to First Parish following inspiration from her husband Andrew, who credits his First Parish youth group for helping to shape his high school years. They and their daughters Caroline and Cecilia savored their Sunday mornings in the pew beside Andrew’s parents, Marty and Bob, listening to beautiful music, soaking in the day’s lessons, and simply living in the moment. At least before Covid!
Megan Ladd
Storyteller
Megan lived in Massachusetts for a number of life-changing years. During part of that time she was a member of First Parish where she was active as a mentor and leader in the OWL and Youth Group programs. She moved back to Maine in 2014 and now lives in Portland with her two cats and collection of Single Malt.
Dan Fenn
Storyteller
Dan told his story, about falling in love just in time, just in time. He passed away not long after he told his story to the Voices audience. For more about Dan, see the “In Memoriam” section listed under previous shows.
David Meharry
Singer
David is an engineer by profession, but has been a lifelong choral singer and performer. He was a founding member of the BSO’s Tangle- wood Festival Chorus. He also lived for several years in Finland, where he sang with the Helsinki Radio Symphony Chorus. He currently sings with the Spectrum Singers as well as the First Parish Choir in Lexington. Dr. Meharry studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Helsinki University of Technology.