John Gelsinger, Singer/Actor

John Gelsinger is a native of Buffalo, N.Y. He graduated with a degree in voice from the State University College of New York at Fredonia in 1971 and earned his music education certificate in 1972 from the University of Buffalo.

After moving to Maine in 1975, his time has been evenly divided between musical and marine interests. He worked as a painter, rigger, and manager at Rockport Marine for 15 years. He has been heard as a soloist in the mid-coast region for 25 years and has directed a number of choral groups, as well as sung in a variety of choirs, ensembles and choruses. He is currently a member of the St. Cecelia Chamber Choir of Damariscotta under the direction of Linda Fleming.

In 1993, around the same time he met his wife Ruth, John became active with the Belfast Maskers, a community theater group in Belfast, Maine. Since then he and Ruth have collaborated on a number of musicals, usually he as a singer and she as pianist and musical director. Among these are Angry Housewives, Pageant, Pumpboys and Dinettes, and The Boys from Swanville. He has also had a number of leading roles in straight plays including Lend Me a Tenor, Wally’s Café, Tartuffe, Pomp and Circumstance, and The Gardens of Frau Hesse. Among the musicals he has been involved with as an actor or music director are Oklahoma!, Carousel, Music Man, Wizard of Oz, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and Angry Housewives.

John also has two daughters: Catherine, who lives in Belfast and is a student of Nursing at the University of Maine, and Emma, who is a student at Northern Michigan University in Marquette, Michigan.

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