Jihang Dai
Director of Music and Organist
I'm currently pursuing a Master of Arts in Music Theory Pedagogy at the Eastman School of Music, where I also serve as a teaching assistant for undergraduate theory classes. I hold a Master of Music in Composition from Syracuse University and a Bachelor of Arts in both Music and Mathematics from Franklin & Marshall College.
My piano studies began at age four, and I've had the privilege of studying with Lü Xingzuo, Elizabeth Keller, Dr. Mark Livshits, and Dr. Jun Cho. My composition teachers have included Dr. Julia Adams, Dr. Keane Southard, Dr. Loren Loiacono, and Dr. Nicolas Scherzinger, and I've studied service music and organ improvisation with Dr. Ivan Bosnar.
In my role as Music Director, I enjoy drawing on my diverse musical background. Alongside programming traditional church music, I regularly compose new pieces and often include piano works as postludes.
Karynna Moore-Sobel
Soprano
Karynna is a Junior Vocal Performance major at the Eastman School of Music under the study of Joshua Conyers. She recently made her orchestral debut as a Soprano soloist in Kodak Hall singing Mendelssohn’s Lobgesang. She has also earned the privilege to sing in a Masterclass under the instruction of Barbara Hannigan. At the end of 2024, Karynna performed a Soprano Arioso from Handel’s Messiah. She won second place at the NATS competition in 2024. She was raised in Ashburn, Virginia as a classical pianist. At age 12, she discovered the opera world and began voice lessons. In her free time, she enjoys running and has run multiple half and full marathons.
Kristina Kaye
Alto
Recently graduated from The Eastman School of Music
Henry Smith
Bass, Violinist
Henry is a violinist hailing from Rochester, New York. He has been on faculty at the Kanack School of Musical Artistry since 2021. Henry earned his Bachelor’s of Music in violin performance and a Master’s in Business Administration at Ithaca College, where he studied the violin with Susan Waterbury, Kirsten Marshall, Calvin Wiersma, and Suzuki Method pedagogy with Carrie Reuning-Hummel. Henry has previously performed as a section player for the Binghamton Philharmonic Orchestra, the Catskills Symphony Orchestra, the Tri-Cities Opera Company, and the Orchestra of the Southern Finger Lakes, as well as several pit orchestras around the Southern Tier and ad hoc composers' ensembles at Cornell University. His teaching and leadership roles have included several student orchestras, vocal and bell choirs, and coaching chamber ensembles for the Ithaca College Summer Music Academy. He has been singing sacred music since high school.
Henry now regularly performs and records as a fiddler-improviser extraordinaire and singer with a variety of traditional, folk, and alternative acts in Rochester and the greater Finger Lakes region. He can be heard on fiddle on upcoming albums The Irish Lassies and Stories of Immigration by the Irish Lassies and as a backup string player on Eric Matthew’s 2024 album Folk Songs for Fairy Tales from Old Bear Records and Great Bear’s 2016 album Magic Fantasy Dream Dance.
Chris Farnum
Baritone
I am a lifelong Episcopalian and have sung in church choirs since my childhood. In addition, I have had the opportunity over the years, to sing in several other groups and even to be a part of the musical Evita! put on by the Blackfriars. The role of a church choir is to support and enhance the experience of our life in a community of faith. It is my hope to be a positive part of that effort.
Samira Hobson
Bass/Tenor
Samira Hobson is a Tenor/Baritone who has spent the majority of her life singing. She grew up attending multiple Episcopal churches, and started her vocal career at the age of eight years old, singing Soprano in the choir at Christ Church Bordentown. A few years later, she sang with the American Boychoir School for a summer season, and attended the NJ Choir Camp hosted by the Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey during her transition from Soprano to Tenor and Baritone. In lieu of a traditional high school, Samira attended a Vocational Technical school for performing arts, located in Ocean County, New Jersey, aptly named the Performing Arts Academy. During her high school years, Samira performed in musicals and plays, most notably as Gaston in Beauty and the Beast in her freshman year. During this time she also sang as a paid section leader at St. Peter’s in Freehold and later Trinity Episcopal Church in Asbury Park. Samira graduated valedictorian of the Grunin Performing Arts Academy’s class of 2021, after which she attended Ocean County College for their engineering program. She continued to sing professionally, for Alan Robinson at Trinity Church in Red Bank, and returned for one season for Stephen Bearse at Christ Church Bordentown, more than a decade after her original debut.
Samira graduated from Ocean County College with an associate’s degree in engineering in the spring of 2023, and is currently attending Rochester Institute of Technology in pursuit of a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering.
