Kevin Raymond Riehle founded CANTARE Houston in spring 2003 to offer to Houston singers and audiences performances of great choral music of great diversity, deep sensitivity and exacting standards. CANTARE Houston has won critical and popular acclaim, being characterized has singing with precision and great heart. The choir has collaborated with Houston’s Mercury Baroque Ensemble, The Rob Landes Trio, Divisi Strings, pianists Timothy Hester and Keith Weber, and at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston in “traveling concerts” of music pairing great art and great a cappella choral music. Its annual “Christmas at MFAH” concerts are perennial sell-outs. Through distinctive and adventuresome programming, CANTARE has won the hearts and minds of concert-goers across Houston and beyond.
Kevin Riehle has enjoyed a long and varied career as a conductor and choral musician, having prepared choirs for concert and liturgy for nearly 30 years. At home in a wide range of musical genres, his work has earned critical and popular praise throughout the country. In addition to CANTARE, Kevin is director of choral activities at James E. Taylor H.S. in the Katy Independent School District, Chorus Master for Houston’s Gilbert and Sullivan Society’s summer productions, and organist of St. Peter’s United Methodist Church in Katy. He has led church music ministries in Lubbock, Tyler and Houston. He founded the successful Marvin Concert Series at Marvin Methodist Church of Tyler, still in existence today. He was artistic director of the Lubbock Civic Chorale from 1984-87 and prepared choruses for the Lubbock Symphony and East Texas Symphony Orchestras.
He made his Carnegie Hall conducting debut in 2001 directing Beethoven’s Mass in C and returned in 2003 to lead choral/orchestral performances of Te Deum settings by Holst and Haydn, and returns in January 2010 to conduct Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass. He has conducted much of the standard choral/orchestral repertoire including the major mass and requiem settings, cantatas, motets and newly-commissioned works. He is frequently serves as guest clinician for choir festivals, all-state choirs, general choral training, vocal workshops and consultations.
He is also at home with music for the theater having prepared and conducted Menotti’s “Amahl and the Night Visitors,” “Godspell,” “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown,” “Snoopy,” and “Seussical the Musical.” He conducted the Rodger’s and Hammerstein classic “The King and I” and “Seussical the Musical” at Miller Outdoor Theatre with HITS Theatre. He is a successful voice teacher and vocal coach/accompanist and has worked with singers at Houston Baptist University and throughout Houston.
As a composer, Riehle’s works have found a regular place in the choral repertoire in the US and abroad and are listed in the catalogues of Oxford University Press, Choristers Guild, and Abingdon Press.
He holds degrees Ohio Northern University, Southern Methodist University, with post-graduate work at Texas Tech University. He participated in the Robert Shaw Choral Institute at Carnegie Hall. He is currently completing coursework for the DMA degree program in Choral Conducting at the University of Houston.
He is married to Norma Riehle, Director of Communications for Christ Church Cathedral, a graphic designer and collaborator with CANTARE Houston. Together they have six children and one grandchild.
