The Directors
Mollie Stone
Dr. Mollie Stone serves as Choral Conductor and Lecturer at the University of Chicago. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Amherst College, a Master of Music degree in conducting from Westminster Choir College, a Doctorate in choral conducting from Northwestern University, and has studied at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. Mollie wrote her dissertation on how Black South Africans have adapted the choral music of the anti-apartheid struggle to address the HIV/AIDS epidemic. In 2001, she received a grant from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation to produce a teaching DVD (Vela Vela) that helps musicians across the world learn and teach Black South African choral music more authentically in the oral tradition. Mollie, alongside Patty Cuyler, has since created additional teaching materials (the Raising the Bar series through The Choral Imperative) that help singers learn about the music of the Republic of Georgia, Bulgaria, and South Africa. Mollie works at home and abroad to facilitate collaborations, projects, and programs that allow singers to study the music of other traditions by working directly with tradition bearers, and to provide tradition bearers with platforms and resources that support them in sharing their music on their own terms.
Patty Cuyler
Patty Cuyler was born in California and educated at Princeton University. A long-time resident of Vermont and a resident of the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago from 2011-2023, Patty is an energetic, dynamic workshop leader and choral director and is internationally-renowned for her expertise in teaching Corsican, Georgian and South African music. Director of the non-profit music education organization Village Harmony, she currently calls Marshfield, Vermont her home, though she returns regularly to Chicago to visit and teach. Over the years she spear-headed the expansion of the organization’s reach into the four corners of the globe. She started the Boston-area chorus Boston Harmony in 2005, and in 2013 with Mollie Stone co-founded the Chicago World Music Chorus. Patty has compiled and edited a massive library of transcriptions of traditional Georgian, Balkan and South African music and co-edited two volumes of The Folk Rhythm, four volumes of the Raising the Bar series of book+dvd publications and two book+cd collections of Georgian folk and sacred music. More recently it was Patty's vision and labor that shaped Village Harmony's response to the recent pandemic years and launched the organization's far-reaching—and continuing—online programs.
Frank Watkins
Frank Watkins joined the faculty of Arizona State University in fall 2025 as Associate Professor of Music and Director of Choral Activities. Prior to his appointment at ASU, Watkins served as Director of Choral Activities at the University of Wisconsin - Eau Claire.
Frank is in demand as guest conductor and clinician and has been active with Village Harmony, having taught workshops on Black Gospel Music in the United States, Republic of Georgia, Canada, and South Africa.
Frank’s research interests include the intersectionality of race, class, and gender in the music of African-American Women in the 21st century and the use of intercultural music education as a catalyst for social change. In 2017, he led an International Fellows Program trip to Dakar, Senegal to study the use of hip-hop and rap as a form of non-violent political protest. In 2018, Frank led a subsequent International Fellows Program trip to Dakar, Senegal to study the use of music in the fight against colorism. In 2023, he presented workshops on Black Gospel music in Polokwane and Cape Town, South Africa.
Wilmia Verrier Quiñones
Cuban-born choir director and teacher Wilmia Verrier Quiñones earned her Master's degree in Music with a focus on Choral Conducting from the University of the Arts (ISA) in Havana, Cuba in 2002. She then taught at Cuba’s National School of Music (ENA) and the University of the Arts (ISA) and other music conservatories in Havana, as well as at the National Conservatory of Music in La Paz, Bolivia.
From 2011 and 2018, Wilmia was director of the professional female group Ensemble Vocal Luna, participatingin national and international festivals and sharing the stage with prestigious Cuban and foreign groups. Her work in leading the group was punctuated by the two gold medals they won at the X World Choral Olympics in Tshwane, South Africa in 2018.
Wilmia has directed a number of choirs internationally, and has given workshops in countries such as Bolivia, Guatemala, Argentina, Jamaica, South Africa, and Mexico. She is the creator and member of the artistic-directive committee of FICFE, International Festival of Women's Choirs of Latin America; she is also a member of the National Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC).
Wilmia has been living in Guadalajara since 2020, where she teaches conducting classes at the University of Guadalajara and directs numerous ensembles, including the university’s Chamber Choir, the Mayahuel Coro Femenino and the Fundación Beckmann Youth Choir.