About Us
The music we make and the making of it
aims to prove the best of humanity,
centering equity and inclusion,
connection and care, beauty and joy.
A Notion, A Scream was founded in 2024 in Portland, Oregon, with DeReau K. Farrar as Artistic Director. Our community choir is an accessible and inclusive ensemble committed to raising our voices against white supremacy culture and oppressions of any kind. A Notion, A Scream is a non-auditioned SATB choir that sings almost entirely the music of living composers. In that way we support the livelihood of composers, and enhance the field of contemporary choral music. We offer concert performances twice a year, as well as community outreach events. For more information, please contact info@anotionascream.org.
Artistic Leadership
Artistic Director (he/him)
DeReau K. Farrar is Artistic Director of Portland's queer and allied youth choir, Bridging Voices and Artistic Director of A Notion, A Scream, a Portland community choir. Additionally, he sings with Resonance Ensemble and served on its Artistic Advisory Team for the 2022 premiere of Damien Geter's An African American Requiem with the Oregon Symphony. DeReau was Musical Director for the 2024 Portland Opera production of The Juliet Letters, the 2024 Portland Center Stage production of Sweeney Todd and their 2023 production of Choir Boy, and the 2022 Portland Revels Spring production of Un Pajarito Canto. Prior to moving to Portland in 2016, he was a music director in Los Angeles where he worked with A Noise Within (The Threepenny Opera, A Christmas Carol), DC6 Singers (SxSW, Jessye Norman’s Stand Up Straight and Sing! Tour, Sundance, Norman Lear, Jerry Kohl), Monkeypaw Productions (Get Out), HBO (All the Way), Selah Gospel Choir (Coachella, RuPaul’s DragCon), University of California Los Angeles (The First Lady), California State University Los Angeles (A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Forum), The Verdi Chorus, The RED Stamp (The Wiz, Ragtime, Songs for a New World), MUSE/IQUE Symphony Orchestra, and others.
DeReau K. Farrar
Accompanist (she/her)
Kelly Angle is excited to be the accompanist for A Notion, A Scream. She currently serves as an accompanist for two children’s choirs within Pacific Youth Choir, and she loves to accompany in and around the Portland area, most often performing with middle and high school choirs, Solo & Ensemble participants, and in musical theater orchestras. She is also an arranger, a vocalist, and a budding vocal coach. In 2023, she proudly served as music and vocal director for the first time for Magenta Theater’s production of Amélie. She taught elementary school music for five years before pivoting to pursue the most important role of her life—being a mother.
Kelly Angle
Board of Directors
(Devon Mitchell, Lynn Fendler, Julie Earnest, DeReau Farrar)
Julie Earnest, President (she/her)
Julie is one of three co-founders of A Notion, A Scream community choir in Portland. She has spent most of her career in research administration within healthcare and biotech settings (Children’s Hospital Oakland, Oregon Health & Sciences University, Applied Biosystems), focusing on development of innovation and collaborative tech transfer programs. In addition, she is the former executive director of the Deacon Charitable Foundation and currently sits on their board. As an avid musician since age 6, Julie has participated in local community choirs and orchestras for over fifty years, and considers the co-creation of this choir to be a culminating expression of the values she holds dear: inclusion, equity, beauty, and joy of creating something with friends!
Lynn Fendler, Secretary (she/they/他)
Lynn is one of three co-founders of A Notion, A Scream community choir in Portland, Oregon. She retired in 2020 from Michigan State University where she focused on social theory and power relations in educational settings. Lynn has been singing in choirs since 1960. In 1974-75 she conducted a church choir in Taipei, Taiwan. From 1980-90 she conducted Womonsong, a feminist choir in Madison, Wisconsin. Building a retirement life, Lynn has been traveling, gardening, cooking, scuba diving, singing, and dancing as much as possible. The creation of A Notion, A Scream has been an exciting and fulfilling adventure that supports a wide array of voices in an ensemble to bring more love and equity into our lives.
Devon Mitchell, Treasurer (she/her)
Devon is one of three co-founders of A Notion, A Scream. She brings to the Board of Directors an extensive background in nonprofit development and management. In 2012, Devon founded and currently serves as Executive Director of the Portland Child Art Studio. PCAS is located in the commercial space of a low-income housing building and is dedicated to increasing equitable access to art education. Devon brings over a decade of experience in managing all aspects of PCAS as well as in teaching art and working with children. She currently also works as the Resident Services Coordinator of the Vibrant, the low-income housing building where PCAS is located. Devon has spent the last decade participating in choral communities and she is passionate about being part of this meaningful singing community in Portland.
DeReau K. Farrar, ex officio
