Two new staff members have been added at Signal Crest United Methodist Church.
Sam Guin has been hired as the assistant youth director and Gioia Fazzini will be the new children's music program director.
Mr. Guin was a member of the Signal Crest youth program from 1997 to 2003 and was a youth counselor in 2006. He graduated from UTC in 2007 and is a firefighter with the Signal Mountain Fire Department.
Ms. Fazzini, a native of Paris, Tn., is a 2005 graduate of Vanderbilt University where she majored in voice. During her time at Vanderbilt she performed in master classes for Barbara Honn of the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music and Martin Katz of the University of Michigan.
She also participated in the Icicle Creek Young Artist's Program in Washington State, where she studied with Juliana Gondek of the Metropolitan Opera. She twice has been a mid-South regional finalist in the National Association of Teachers of Singing vocal competition.
Ms. Fazzini moved to Chattanooga in 2007 to attend the Professional Actor Training Program at Chattanooga State. She has taught both private voice and violin lessons to children in her hometown.
While in high school she first conducted a madrigal group which placed in the top eight at the Festival of Gold in Washington, D.C., and has been a professional staff singer at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Chattanooga. At Signal Crest she will direct the children's choirs and handbells.