STAFF
Matthew Robertson, Artistic Director
Matthew Robertson, praised for his “sensitive and nuanced” conducting, is acclaimed as the driving force behind the all-star professional choir, The Thirteen, and is hailed as a leader in the field. As Founder and Artistic Director of The Thirteen, he has conducted the ensemble throughout the United States and on multiple recordings.
Robertson’s 2020-2021 season promises to be unlike any before it, with numerous live-streamed performances, including performances of Schütz’s Musikalisches Exequien, Handel’s Messiah, a staged performance of J.S. Bach’s St. John Passion, Monteverdi’s The “Lost” Mass, and more.
Angela Marroy Boerger, Managing Director
Angela Marroy Boerger is an arts administrator, musicologist, and violinist who has spent her career working to build conversations and communities around artmaking—the result of her deeply-held belief that access to an arts-rich life is a fundamental civil right. Angela joins The Thirteen from Arts Every Day in Baltimore, where she was Director of School Programs and Learning and worked with Baltimore City Public Schools to ensure equitable access to the arts for all students in the district. While at Arts Every Day, Angela founded the Baltimore Arts Integration Project, a $2.9 million US Department of Education-funded initiative.
Prior to her work in Baltimore, Angela was the Education Manager at the Metropolitan Opera, where she led the education curriculum and programming for the Met’s HD Live in Schools, an opera education and access program in 38 states across the country for over 16,000 students each year. Angela has also served as Director of Education at Westport Country Playhouse, as a Music Writer for McGraw Hill Education, and as Managing Editor of Bare Opera in New York.
Trained from youth as a violinist, Angela discovered historically-informed performance practice as a violin major at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University. She holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Rice in musicology and medieval studies, and pursued PhD studies in music history at Yale University, writing on Viennese opera at the end of the eighteenth century. Her wide-ranging research interests have included classical and contemporary opera and Lieder to American swing dance music and Duke Ellington.
Angela lives in Maryland with her husband Tim and children Sophie Magdalena and Thaddaeus James, who are aspiring graphic novelists and paleontologists, respectively. In her free time, you can find her on sunny days working in her gardens, and in inclement weather, pursuing a never-ending list of restoration projects in her historic home.
Gilbert Spencer,
Production & Communications Coordinator
Gilbert Spencer is a performer and arts administrator based in Washington, DC. He is looking forward to expanding his role with The Thirteen after serving for several years as the group’s Assistant Conductor, during which time he was responsible for assisting the Artistic Director in all musical activities and the Managing Director with concert and event front-of-house and other logistical matters. He has also performed with The Thirteen on many occasions, and is regularly featured on concerts with other professional ensembles as a singer and conductor. Gilbert is a passionate choral musician and is deeply committed to supporting the artists and communities that make The Thirteen’s work possible.
Beyond his work for The Thirteen, Gilbert has also managed the choral ensembles at Washington National Cathedral and the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.
A graduate of Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music, Gilbert studied voice with renowned pedagogue W. Stephen Smith, as well as concentrating on work in sound engineering and design and conducting. Gilbert’s musical training extends beyond Northwestern to the historic boychoir tradition; he is an alumnus of the American Boychoir as well as the Choir of Men and Boys of St. Thomas Church 5th Avenue in New York City.
When not performing or studying music, Gilbert enjoys building instruments and collaborating with the artists at the Four Hour Day Lutherie in Baltimore, and spending time with his dog, Herbie.