​​​​​​​​​​Triangle Jewish Chorale

Our Team

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Lorena Guillén, conductor and artistic director

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Jeff Whicker, accompanist

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Lorena Guillén (conductor and artistic director) has been described as a delicate soprano by the Washington Post.  The Classical Voice of North Carolina has said that "she produces a notably Latin sound, rich and full of expression."

Guillén was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, initiating her voice training at the National Conservatory of Music.  She holds a Master in Vocal Performance and a Ph.D. in Musicology from SUNY at Buffalo.  Equally at home as a performer of art music and her homeland popular tango song, Guillén has premiered and recorded many compositions by living composers and the classics of the 20th and 21st centuries, as well as the standards of the tango song at national and international venues.
As a vocal coach and musical director, Guillén has prepared from full opera productions, such as Purcell's Fairy Queen, to smaller vocal chamber ensembles, mostly at her former teaching position in Hartwick College (NY) and Hartwick Summer Festival and Institute.  She has been guest vocal coach of the Catskills Choral Society (NY), Dunbar United Church of Christ Chorus (CT), and regular coach of San Pedro Telmo Church Choir and Grupo Vocal Compaz in Argentina.  She also sang with some of the most important professional choirs of her native country.
Guillén has recorded for Innova Records, University of Arizona Recordings, and Kindermusik, Inc.  She is a former member of the multidisciplinary ensemble Musica Aperta from Washington, DC,  a founding member of the word/music experimental group Lake Affect, and since 2015 performs around the nation with her own Lorena Guillén Tango Ensemble.

Guillén is a member faculty of the School of Music at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro since 2007.

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Jeff Whicker is the music director and pianist/organist at Emerywood Baptist Church in High Point.  He has served congregations in that capacity continuously since the age of 15.  He taught high school chorus for 16 years, most recently at Riverside High School here in Durham and he remains actively employed by Durham Public Schools, accompanying high school, middle school, and elementary all-county choirs.  He is the accompanist for the Durham Children’s choir and plays for all choirs at the Durham School of the Arts. 

He received Batchelor’s and Master’s degrees in Music Education from UNC-G, and in another lifetime, graduated from UNC Law School and practiced as an attorney in the Triangle.  He loves vacationing in Yosemite, where he recently successfully climbed Half Dome (above his right shoulder in the photograph) for the 17th time since he was 15 years old.