"I've learned how to be a chorus director, and that's something I didn't expect to do," she added.

"Imani has raw talent," says Elizabeth Parker, the chorus director.

The current chorus director is Timothy Dean, since 2006.

Barbara Mattingly has been chorus director for the past seven years.

The chorus director said something about "dramatic temperament."

Later that year he left for the Hamburg Opera to work as a chorus director.

Merola heard of him and, over the telephone, invited him to San Francisco opera in 1943 as chorus director.

That should be perfectly clear to anyone who sees him in action as a singer, pianist and chorus director.

He was a chorus director in Fort Benning, before moving on to his position at Jordan.