Meet Our Artists

Learn more about the artists involved in our performances of Michael Betzner-Brandt’s chamber arrangement of the Verdi Requiem. Performances will be held on Friday, November 1 at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, November 3 at 3:00 p.m. Both concerts will be held at Grace Lutheran Church in River Forest, IL. Get your tickets online or at the door.

Sarah Christianson – Timpani

Sarah Christianson plays timpani and percussion in ensembles throughout the Chicagoland region. She serves as the principal timpanist of the Lansing Symphony Orchestra (MI) and frequently performs with the Northbrook Symphony Orchestra, Rockford Symphony Orchestra, West Michigan Symphony Orchestra, and Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, among others. As a chamber musician, Sarah has performed with the all- female contemporary ensemble Noise Bias and is a former member of The Achelois Collective, a virtual chamber ensemble dedicated to promoting underrepresented artists. Sarah can also be spotted on the Jumbotron at the United Center, where she plays percussion with a brass ensemble for the Chicago Blackhawks home games.

In addition to performing, Sarah works on staff at Roosevelt University’s Chicago College of Performing Arts. She received her Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees from DePaul University.

Liz Deitemyer – Horn

Liz Deitemyer is a Chicago-area hornist with a dynamic freelance career that takes her from the concert hall to the basement jazz club. She enjoys a wide variety of musical outlets, including recording with rock bands, developing interactive chamber music concerts, accompanying musicals, and playing classical literature in orchestral settings. Liz can also be seen on the narrow end of an alphorn during Oktoberfest season. As part of The Alloy Horn Quartet, Liz champions works by female composers and integrates horn playing with her education in clinical social work to use the power of music to affect personal, psychological, and social change.

Michael Hovnanian – Double Bass

Michael Hovnanian grew up in the Seattle area. His primary teachers were James Harnett and Ronald Simon of the Seattle Symphony. He also studied with Frederick Tinsley of the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the California Institute of the Arts, where he received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. He was a member of the Victoria B.C. and San Antonio Symphony orchestras before being appointed to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) in 1989 by Sir Georg Solti, where he remained until 2019.

Michael has appeared as a double bass soloist with the Seattle Symphony, Northwest Chamber Orchestra, and the Highland Park Strings. As a chamber musician, he has performed at the Northwestern Winter Chamber Music Festival and the CSO Chamber Series. He is currently a member of Music of the Baroque, the Chicago Philharmonic, and the Chicago Opera Theater, and performs with a variety of other local ensembles.

Tina Laughlin – Percussion

Tina Laughlin was born in Elgin, Illinois and received both her B.M. and M.M. in Percussion Performance with a minor in Art History from DePaul University. As a freelance artist, Laughlin performs with many orchestras, theaters and ensembles in the Chicagoland area including the Paramount Theatre, Chicago Shakespeare, Court Theatre, Lyric Opera Orchestra, Grant Park Orchestra, Chicago Opera Theater, Broadway in Chicago, The Joffrey Ballet, Chicago Philharmonic, Music Theater Works, Consonance and the Elgin Symphony. She is a regular section member of the Chicago Sinfonietta.

Laughlin also enjoys playing non-traditional orchestral repertoire, including video game concerts of Zelda, Final Fantasy, NieR and movies with live orchestra, including Black Panther, The Batman, Elf, The Nightmare Before Christmas and Get Out. In the fall of 2003, Laughlin performed the Midwest premiere of the Philip Glass operas “The Sound of a Voice” and “Hotel of Dreams” at the Court Theatre in Chicago. Laughlin is also seen in the film Home Alone 2: Lost in New York as the cymbal player in Carnegie Hall. She has taught at DePaul University for over 20 years. In the fall of 2013, Laughlin was appointed Instructor of Percussion at Northeastern Illinois University.

Thomas Schmidt – Organ

Thomas Schmidt spent his 50-year career in New York City where he taught at Concordia College, Bronxville, for 20 years, toured and recorded as pianist for the Arden Trio for 25 years, and was cantor at Saint Peter’s Lutheran Church in Manhattan for 25 years. At Saint Peter’s he conducted the choir in Bach’s St. Matthew Passion every Good Friday and was the Artistic Director of the annual Basically Bach Festival. He also conducted the Bronx Concert Singers, the Long Island Symphonic Association, and was assistant conductor of the Gregg Smith Singers. His degrees are from Valparaiso (BM in church music), University of Wisconsin (MM in piano) and Yale (DMA in piano). He and his wife Kathy enjoy life in Chicago since they retired here in 2019, and he has collaborated with Michael Costello and Consonance (Chicago Choral Artists) since then.

Hoss Brock – Tenor

Tenor Hoss Brock is a versatile artist who enjoys performing with many prestigious organizations. He is currently a full time member of both the Lyric Opera of Chicago and Grant Park Music Festival choruses. During his time at Lyric, Hoss made his solo debut as Ike Skidmore in Oklahoma!, and has performed several other roles, ranging from Bishop to Drag Queen. Other operatic appearances include the Pine Mountain Music Festival, Tulsa Opera, Chautauqua Opera, and the San Francisco Opera. Enjoying many styles of music, Hoss formed High in the Lower 80’s, an 80’s tribute band appearing around Chicagoland, and sang Baba Yetu from Civ IV at the Video Games Live national tour. His voices-only arrangement of Bohemian Rhapsody was hailed by Chicago a cappella as a “great achievement in the ensemble’s history”.

In his spare time, Hoss pursues many hobbies, including woodworking, baking sourdough bread, building and painting terrain and miniatures for tabletop gaming, and growing and training Bonsai. He also enjoys motorcycling and off-road driving, having wheeled at the Cliffs Insane Terrain in Marseilles, IL, the Badlands Off-road Park in Attica, IN, and the northern terminus of Highway 41 in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

Jennifer Kosharsky – Mezzo-soprano

Jennifer Kosharsky, praised for her “lumimous mezzo-soprano voice” and “outstanding vocal range,” is an accomplished artist whose powerful performances resonate with audiences and critics. Her portrayal of Princess Eboli in Don Carlo with Houston’s Opera in the Heights was lauded as “a powerhouse mezzo” with a uniquely “velvet-voiced” quality that “raised the roof.” Jennifer’s upcoming engagements include her South American debut as Amneris in Aida with Prolírica de Antioquia in Colombia. Recent highlights include joining The Joffrey Ballet in Yuri Possokhov’s Anna Karenina at the Lyric Opera of Chicago and The Kennedy Center. Most recently, she covered leading roles in Menotti’s La Medium and Dallapiccola’s Il Prigioniero with Opera Festival Chicago. Jennifer debuted as Santuzza in Cavalleria Rusticana in 2023 and has performed internationally, including her European debut with the Dubrovnik Symphony Orchestra. A DePaul University graduate, she began as a professional flutist before transitioning to opera. Jennifer is delighted to be singing with Consonance for the first time and dedicates these performances to her beloved mentor, Cesare Curzi, who passed away last year.

Laura Strickling – Soprano

Laura Strickling, two-time GRAMMY^® award nominee for Best Classical Vocal Solo Album for Confessions (2022) and 40@40 (2024), was recognized by The New York Times for her, “flexible voice, crystalline diction, and warm presence,” which make her a welcome guest soloist for a range of works, from Handel to Britten and beyond. These include Mahler’s Fourth Symphony with the San Antonio Philharmonic and the Knoxville Symphony, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the Seattle Symphony and the Elgin Symphony, Bachianas Brazileiras (Villa-Lobos) with the San Antonio Philharmonic, Messiah (Handel) with the Indianapolis Symphony, the Pacific Symphony, and the Richmond Symphony, Gloria (Poulenc) with the Asheville Symphony, Mass in c minor (Mozart) with the Richmond Symphony, Cathedral Choral Society, and Berkshire Choral International, Knoxville: Summer of 1915 (Barber) with the Norwalk Symphony and Mexicoliederfest, Pierrot Lunaire (Schoenberg) with the Chiarina Chamber Players, and Luonnotar (Sibelius) and Les Illuminations (Britten) with the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra. www.laurastrickling.com

Aaron Wardell – Baritone

Aaron Wardell appears regularly with many Chicago-based theaters, orchestras and choral groups singing a wide variety of operatic and concert repertoire. He was most recently seen as Father/Clerk in Chicago Opera Theater’s performance of Shostakovich’s The Nose, performed Mahler’s Songs of a Wayfarer with The Northwest Symphony in Arlington Heights and as Primo Giudice Haymarket Opera’s production of Stradella’s La Susanna. Other recent roles include Spanish Sailor in Chicago Opera Theater’s production of Moby Dick and Falke in Die Fledermaus with DuPage’s New Philharmonic Orchestra. Previously he has appeared as Melchior in Amahl and the Night Visitors with Chamber Opera Chicago and as Dr. Raymond in the world premiere of The Great God Pan with Chicago Fringe Opera. 

Elsewhere, he has sung operatic and concert work with the Sheboygan Symphony, Fort Wayne Philharmonic, Niles Metropolitan Chorus, The Paducah Symphony, Castleton Festival, Dayton Opera, Opera Tampa and Central City Opera. Also an avid choral singer, Aaron is a member of Chicago A Cappella, The Chicago Symphony, Grant Park and Lyric Opera choruses. 

Aaron earned a Bachelor of Music from Western Michigan University and completed his graduate studies at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, where he earned a Master of Music and Artist Diploma certificate in Opera.

Artistic Director

Michael D. Costello

Michael D. Costello is in the eleventh year of directing Consonance and looks forward to a second decade of leadership with the ensemble.

Costello is a graduate of Lenoir-Rhyne University in Hickory, North Carolina, and Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary in Columbia, South Carolina. Since 2008 Costello has served as Cantor at Grace Lutheran Church and School in River Forest, Illinois, where he directs choirs, serves as principal organist, and directs Grace’s Bach Cantata Vespers series. Besides conducting scores of Bach’s cantatas while at Grace, Costello has also conducted Bach’s St. Matthew and St. John Passions, Mass in B Minor, and Christmas Oratorio. He has led the Bach Cantata Vespers chorus abroad several times, performing with Baroque orchestras in the famous Thomaskirche of Leipzig, Germany.

An accomplished organist, Costello appeared as part of WFMT’s Bach Organ Project, performing a full program of Bach’s organ works. He is a composer of music for both choir and organ. Many of his choral pieces and organ collections are published by MorningStar Music Publishers. Other pieces are published by Augsburg Fortress and Concordia Publishing House.

Before moving to Chicago in 2008, Costello was Director of Music Ministries and Assistant Pastor at St. Andrew’s Lutheran Church in Columbia, South Carolina. He also served on the adjunct faculty in music and liturgy at Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary. Costello is an active member of the American Guild of Organists, the American Choral Directors Association, and the Association of Lutheran Church Musicians.

He serves on the Board of Directors of Lutheran Music Program, home of the Lutheran Summer Music Academy & Festival.