Our Director: Allan Robert Petker
Allan Robert Petker is a published composer and arranger with more than 250 published works with numerous publishing houses. His conducting books, “Choral Questions and Answers" have become staples in school curriculum and for secondary resource material. His crusade to offer a cure for musical illiteracy culminated in the publication of the ADVANCE learning series. Allan holds degrees from California State University at Northridge in music, specializing in viola (BA), voice and choral conducting (MA).
Allan has been involved in the choral music publishing industry for many years. He joined the staff at Fred Bock Music Company in 1977 and is currently their Vice President of Publications. In 1989 he established his own company, Pavane Publishing, which publishes distinguished choral music and college-level course texts. He later added John Rich Music Press to his publishing portfolio.
As a conductor, Allan frequently serves as a guest clinician or conductor for publishers, choral societies, church festivals, state honor choirs and colleges. Internationally, he has guest conducted choirs in England, Korea and France. In the summer of 1994, he formed the Consort Chorale, an ensemble of 50 auditioned voices from the San Francisco Bay area, which maintains an on-going concert series. In 2004 he became the Conductor and Artistic Director for the Santa Clarita Master Chorale, an 80-voice auditioned ensemble that performs a subscription concert season with orchestra. In 2015 he added the Los Cancioneros Master Chorale (Torrance), a 60-voice auditioned choir, to his conducting portfolio. His chorales have toured Europe, Eastern Europe, Russia, Argentina and Portugal, and will soon add Scotland to the list.
Since 1989 Allan has been a clinician in two summer church music conferences at Lake Tahoe, “Summer Sing” and “Tuning @ Tahoe.” He is currently the Dean for both conferences. As an instrumentalist, Allan plays a number of stringed instruments and has done free-lance studio work and occasional concert playing. You may even catch him at a pub in the Los Angeles area, playing jazz violin and viola, one of his favorite things to do.
Our Accompanist: Patty Breitag
Patty has a Bachelor of Music & Master of Music degrees. She is a freelance professional musician and has served as the Accompanist for Los Cancioneros Master Chorale in Torrance since 1997. She has worked as musical director, vocal music director, rehearsal accompanist and pit musician for many musical theatre productions.
A member of Southern California Vocal Association and American Choral Directors Association, she has been the Artistic Director of The Patty Breitag Singers, the Interim Artistic Director of Los Cancioneros and for 10 years the Accompanist/Assistant Conductor for West Coast Singers of West Hollywood.
Patty has also been a church organist/musician for 51 years, currently serving as the Director of Music, Organist and Choir Director at El Segundo United Methodist Church where she has been since 1995.
The 2016 recipient of the “Excellence in Arts Award” from the Cultural Arts Commission of Torrance, Patty is also one of the 2017 recipients of the Torrance Performing Arts Consortium (TPAC) Daily Breeze “Making A Difference Award” for her outstanding contribution as Accompanist of Los Cancioneros.
Recently retired as the Choir Teacher and AP Music Theory Instructor at Diamond Bar High School, Patty works at El Camino College as a staff accompanist and valued staff member of the Musical Theatre Department.
