Our Staff

Connie Brown is an accomplished pianist who has played for ensembles, soloists, and choirs both in California where she was raised, and Colorado where she has lived since 1990. As a music instructor, she has extensive experience working with very young students in group settings and teaching individual students of varying ages and levels from her private piano studio. She has a Bachelor of Arts degree in music from California State University, East Bay.

As a classical pianist, Margot obtained a master degree in chamber music and piano performance at the LUCA School of Arts and the Conservatory of Brussels in Belgium, her homecountry. She performed in Europe and the USA and won several prizes on international piano competitions. In 2020 she moved to the USA to pursue a performance diploma at the Cleveland Institute of Music. There she met her husband and together they moved to Denver. Margot is currently active as a piano teacher, accompanist and choir director.

Mary Anne is a charter member of Canto Deo and has sung with Jonathan Brown since his arrival in Colorado in 1990. Mary Anne is a retired dentist and currently works as health coach in the energy medicine field. As choir manager she keeps track of the membership, orders and supplies music and is responsible for communications. She also keeps the website up to date, records and edits the YouTube videos, as well as helping maintain other social media sites. Mary Anne was raised in a musical household and sang in choirs as soon as she was old enough to carry a tune. She is also an accomplished flutist and has played with Canto Deo many times.

A charter member of Canto Deo, Rebecca Leavenworth sings 2nd Soprano in both the Chamber and Festival choirs and has had the joy of singing with Jonathan Brown since 1990. A musician from early in her life, she also plays the piano, all voices of recorder, handbells, and can usually make her way around dulcimers and other early period instruments. In addition to lending her singing voice, Rebecca generates much of the publicity for Canto Deo and is a lead collaborator on both web and print content. As an amateur music history researcher, Rebecca enjoys diving deeper into the background of composers and compositions. Her all-time favorite Christmas piece is In Terra Pax, with music by Gerald Finzi, text based on the Robert Bridges poem, Noel: Christmas Eve, 1913.

Canto Deo Organist and Chamber Choir Tenor Charles Nolen has been a director of music and director of liturgy since 1996 in churches in Tennessee, Michigan, and Colorado.  Mr. Nolen currently serves as the Director of Sacred Music and Organist at St. John Vianney Seminary as well as Liturgical Music Specialist for the Archdiocese of Denver.  He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Music from Rhodes College and a Master of Music degree in Organ Performance from the University of Memphis.  A member of many professional musician organizations, he serves locally on the board of the Denver Rocky Mountain Chapter of the American Guild of Organists, and maintains an organ teaching studio in addition to substituting as organist and singer for Catholic parishes in the Denver area.  Charles lives with his wife and three teenagers in South Aurora, in a home where the singing is constant and the Nerf battles are frequent.