Cassie Crabb is a senior at Brigham Young University where she studies Recreation Management. She has been singing with Noteworthy since 2009 and was the business director this past school year. She has a love for performing and is grateful for the way that it has positively influenced who she is today. Cassie would like to thank her family and friends for their love and support in all that she does.
Keith McCauley met his wife, Erika McCauley, singing in the internationally renowned BYU singers, directed by Dr. Ronald Staheli. In addition to BYU singers, McCauley has sung under the direction of Rosalind Hall and Mac Wilberg in the BYU Concert Choir and Men’s Chorus, respectively. Mr. McCauley was a founding member of two successful collegiate mail a cappella ensembles: Inside Out and Moose Butter. McCauley has studied voice with Anna Gray, Linda Walker and Barry Bounous. He has played leading and supporting roles in Into The Woods, You’re a good Man Charlie Brown, Annie, Romeo and Juliet, and The Magic Flute. Mr. McCauley has been married for six years and has a two-year-old son.
Mr. McCauley has subsequently become a director of choirs at Cantus Youth Choirs.
Taylor Olsen is a junior at Brigham Young University studying Media Music. In her spare time she likes to run, cook, travel and write songs. She was a 2009 youngARTS national finalist for musical theater, wrote the 2011 Young Women’s theme song, Guardians of Virtue for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and is currently working on an EP of her original music. She loves her family and loves the Lord. Her experiences with Noteworthy this year were life-changing and she is looking forward to more life-changing experiences while studying at the BYU Jerusalem center this fall.
Michelle Pedersen is the choral director at Howard Street Charter School, in Salem, Oregon; a middle school with a student body of 155, 135 of whom are in choir. Ms. Pedersen has degrees in Vocal Performance and Music Education from Oregon State University, where she has been a featured soloist in Oregon, Cost Rica, China, Canada, and Taiwan. She has worked for the Salem-Keizer schools as an accompanist, percussionist, and vocal coach. Ms. Pedersen has a private voice studio, in which she works with vocalists (13 and older), and is also the director of choral music at First Congregational Church of Salem. She has recently played rules such as: Mabel in The Pirates of Penzance Susannah in Le Nozze de Figaro, Adelaide in Guys and Dolls, Gertrude McFuzz in Seussical The Musical, a member of the Angel City 4 in City of Angels, and Mimi Marquez in RENT.
Ms. Pedersen was featured again in 2013, and is currently a director of choirs at Cantus Youth Choirs.
Kelsey Pratt is a Media Music major at Brigham Young University. She has been singing since she was young and can’t imagine her life without the influence of music in it. She was in the all-female a cappella group, Noteworthy, from 2008 to 2010 and directed the group the following year. Kelsey is so grateful for her ever-supportive husband and for all that he does. Kelsey and her husband are expecting their first child, a baby girl, in August.
Laina Walker is going into her third year with Noteworthy and loves it with all her heart. It has had such a big impact on her life and she is so grateful for the opportunity to sing with such lovely girls and meet such wonderful people. She’s been singing since she was little when her grandmother started giving her voice lessons at age 8. Laina has been in performing groups her whole life and is now a Music Dance Theater major at Brigham Young University. Laina is so grateful for all of her family and friends who have shown her so much love and support.
Amy Weaver has a Bachelors degree in Piano Performance and Pedagogy from Brigham Young University. She attended the University on both academic and music scholarships. In addition to piano, she sang for two years with the Brigham Young University Singers, touring Southern California, England, Israel, Jordan, and New York’s Carnegie Hall for the choir’s debut concert. She has maintained a private piano studio since 2000 in Columbus, Ohio; Central point, Oregon; and now Nampa, Idaho. She has been the music coordinator and choir director for her church in each of these locations. She is the happy mother of (soon to be) five children.