About the Directors
Julia Simon
Julia Simon, Director and founder of the Silicon Valley Boychoir, has taught children and adults in schools, churches, and private organizations in California, New Jersey, Minnesota, and Arizona. She holds a Bachelor's degree from Concordia College, Moorhead, MN and a Masters degree from Westminster Choir College, Princeton, NJ and has studied conducting with Paul J. Christiansen and Joseph Flummerfelt.Mrs. Simon has taught in the Palo Alto schools teaching choirs, general music, and 
musical theatre. For eight years, Mrs. Simon worked with the Ragazzi Boys Chorus touring Australia and New Zealand as well as the Pacific Northwest where she led choirs at the Missoula International Choral Festival. She has taught singers in her voice studio, training them for auditions and performances with the S.F. Symphony, S.F. Opera, Opera San Jose, and West Bay Opera as well as local performances and competitions.
She also composes and has had several pieces premiered and performed locally and has several children's pieces published by Augsburg Fortress. Mrs. Simon has performed as soloist and chorus member with Soli Deo Gloria and its select chamber choir Camerata Gloria and the vocal jazz group, the San Andreas Singers.
Catherine Doyle
Catherine Doyle, Concert choir director, is Artistic Director Emeritus and Director of Alumnae of Peninsula Girls Chorus, and is a graduate of Westminster Choir College; she has performed with the Syracuse Symphony, the Philadelphia Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic, and sung with Zubin Mehta, Riccardo Muti, Joseph Flummerfelt, and Robert Shaw. She pursued graduate studies at Cambridge University, where she specialized in treble-voice music. She studied form and analysis with noted San Francisco composer David Sheinfeld.
Ms. Doyle has prepared choruses and soloists for the San Francisco Opera, the San Francisco Symphony, and Masterworks Chorale. Her choruses have worked with Chanticleer, the Bay Area Women's Philharmonic and Meet the Composer. Her choirs have toured the Americas, Europe and Africa. In 1994, she founded the Peninsula Girls Chorus, as its Artistic Director building the organization into a valuable community resource. In 2011, she transitioned into Artistic Director Emeritus, and Director of Alumnae, and is now creating programs for PGC singers in the collegiate and young adult years. In 2012, she created the first middle school choir at North Shoreview Montessori School, and continues to maintain a private voice studio.
She is a member of the American Choral Directors Association, and Chorus America who awarded in 2008 the ASCAP/Chorus America Award for Adventurous Programming of Contemporary Music, specifically recognizing Ms. Doyle's long-term commitment to the programming of new music.
Kaia Richards, Overture director, earned her Masters of Music and Doctor of Music in Vocal Performance from Indiana University, Jacobs School of Music. She received her B.M. in Music from California State University, East Bay.
She was most recently seen as Mabel in The Lamplighters’ production of Pirates of Penzance and as Angel Gabriel in Josef Haydn’s The Creation with Soli Deo Gloria (Alameda, CA). Kaia's IU Opera Theater appearances include Carmelite nun in Francis Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites and Bridesmaid in William Bolcom’s A Wedding. She sang the soprano solo with her alma mater, Cal State East Bay, in their recent concert of Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy and sang with the San Francisco Bay Area Chamber Choir on their Summer France tour. Kaia played Frasquita in George Bizet's Carmen for the International Institute of Vocal Arts in Italy.
She has been a voice coach for Moreau Catholic High School (Hayward, CA), Presentation High School (San Jose, CA), Bedford North Lawrence High School (Bedford, IN) and Good Shepherd Lutheran Church (Hayward, CA).
Under the baton of Raymond Leppard, she was a member of the chamber group Apollo’s Voice. When Kaia isn’t performing, she teaches a thriving voice studio and directs the choirs at St. James the Apostle Catholic church. Kaia is also the soprano section lead for the Menlo Park Chorus.
Allen H Simon, Encore director, holds advanced degrees from Westminster Choir College and the University of Arizona and has been the Artistic Director of Soli Deo Gloria for twenty-five years. He is also the director, pianist, and arranger for the San Andreas Singers, a vocal jazz ensemble. Dr. Simon is also active as a composer and arranger.