Throughout her life, Beth Armstrong has had an uncanny ability for being in the right place at the right time.

It started in college when she was just 19, attending Tufts University, when she was approached to become the director of the school’s a cappella group.

“I had absolutely no idea how to do it,” she said. “I was completely horrible, but I was available, and I’ll just leave it at that.”

Born into a musical family in 1949 and raised outside of Cleveland, Ohio, Armstrong had been singing in some form or another since she was four years old. But a career in music never seemed realistic, so she concentrated on other studies, and life moved on. She met a New Hampshire man got married and settled down, which brought her to New England.

But as she hit 30 years old, she felt that calling inside that so many creatives feel. A calling for more.

“I was a wife and mother and part of me thought that was all I needed to be. Then there was a point where I thought, that’s fine, but it’s not enough,” she said. “I thought, I’ve always been a musician, I need to stop pretending I’m not a musician, because I am.”

She started attending the University of New Hampshire, intent on getting a master’s degree in music education. But finances were tight, and she wound up unable to afford the final two courses. Thankfully, she was still able to acquire a teaching certificate.

Then, that knack for being in the right place at the right time happened again — when a job for a music teacher at a middle school outside of Concord, N.H. suddenly became available.

“They were desperate, and I was available,” she said. “I got that job and I was terrible at it, but got better. I learned far more than the kids did.”

That job led to a different public school job around 1986, teaching music at a middle/high school outside Manchester, which she did for 10 years. Eventually, the politics of public school got to be too much, and she felt the turning pages of a new chapter coming on.

And it just so happened that the Suncook Valley Chorale of Milford, N.H. was looking for a new director around the same time.

A lifetime of lifting voices

Armstrong once again took on a role for which she (in her words) didn’t feel qualified, but nonetheless found herself taking on.

“I had never directed a chorus. I had sung in them, but I didn’t know what to do,” Armstrong recalled. “There were people who said, ‘I think you can do this,’ so I applied.”

At this point divorced for a number of years, Armstrong met her second husband there. She directed the chorus until 2000, when her husband was offered a job as principal of Byfield School in Bristol. Thus, Armstrong arrived in the Ocean State, where yet another new chapter began.

“It was exciting and scary,” she said. “I didn’t know if I could be a choral director here. I don’t have a music degree. But what I did have was experience.”

She quickly found a short-lived role as the director of the Rhode Island Feminist Chorus. She joined the Providence Singers as a singer, and soon got an email from a friend about an opening for the director of the Tiverton Community Chorus. She got the job. All the while, she was also teaching piano and voice as an adjunct professor at Roger Williams University, and for a music school in East Providence.

“I have no idea how it all worked out, but it did,” Armstrong said. “Suddenly I was doing what I loved to do in Rhode Island.”

The Chorus of East Providence

Then came a new opportunity in 2007, after the East Providence Community Chorus disbanded in the early 2000s. A new group sprung up to revive it and thus, the Chorus of East Providence was born. And who just happened to have been in Rhode Island — in the right place, at the right time — other than Beth Armstrong.

Over the next 19 years, Armstrong helped grow the chorus from a group of around 54 people during her first rehearsal into a group that was 109 people strong during its final performance at East Providence High School on Sunday, April 26, 2026.

A select few of those members have been with Armstrong since the beginning, but a lot of turnover occurs throughout the years. People move (or pass) away. But there is always room for new members. Armstrong makes sure to emphasize that the Chorus of East Providence is a non-auditioning community choir, which means absolutely anyone can join, regardless of skill level.

“Some of them are very talented and experienced singers, and some of them are not,” she said. “Some have no idea what they’re doing, and they’re learning on the job, just like I did.”

What matters more than technical ability, to Armstrong, is a passion for singing.
“The one thing we have that instrumentalists don’t have, is the words, the poetry of it, the meaning of it,” she said. “It can be very emotional and moving.”

The chorus, despite a common misconnection, is not affiliated with any religion. They sing anything and everything you can imagine — from religious hymnals to Broadway show tunes and the Beatles. The chorus has taken Armstrong and her singers on a tour through Ireland, through D.C. in a Memorial Day Parade with the Air Force Band, and even to the famed Carnegie Hall to sing backup for British a cappella group, The King’s Singers.

But it might have been the last performances of Armstrong’s career that wind up meaning the most to her.

A final bow

A week before her final two performances at East Providence High School, Armstrong woke up to an unfamiliar feeling. Butterflies fluttered about in her stomach, and lingered each day.

“I wouldn’t even call it nervous,” she said. “I was just excited.”

A culmination of around four months and 17 rehearsals, Armstrong decided that the theme of the show would be a celebration of the joy of singing.

“It’s really wonderful to sing in a chorus,” she said. “It’s joyful. It changes your life, I believe it in.”

The show would also serve as a way for her to thank all members and supporters of the Chorus of East Providence, “and the universe”, for allowing her to live a life of music for the past 45 years.

And lastly, it was important to Armstrong to leave a lasting message of optimism amidst a time period she sees as historically dark.

“The world is completely screwed up right now, and I am very upset about it, and I think that there is a tiny bit of solution in getting people to sing together. I believe that,” she said. “I turned to the audience and I told them that. I said there’s not much we can do about the mess we’re in, the mess this country is in, but there’s one thing I can do — conduct one more concert. And that’s what you’re hearing. It was very emotional.”

Throughout a setlist that included uplifting songs from a wide variety of origins — from Quaker hymns to Sesame Street, Spamelot, and a surprise encore of “For Good” from the worldwide Broadway sensation, “Wicked” — the chorus didn’t disappoint the packed auditorium for either show.

“It went better than it could have,” Armstrong said. “They were so good. They nailed it.”

A highlight for Armstrong was being surprised by Mayor Bob DaSilva, who appeared during an intermission to present her with a commendation from the city and the State Senate.

“I was like, oh my god, what just happened?” she said.

Armstrong makes sure to note that the Chorus of East Providence will continue on without her. A new director, Matthew Quinn, represents an exciting infusion of young energy the chorus has experienced in recent years. According to Armstrong, around a third of the chorus is composed of people under the age of 40. Quinn has been a member for the past two years.

“Matthew Quinn is going to be just what the group needs,” Armstrong said. “He’s classically trained but he’s also young…It’s time for younger people to take over.”

And although her life has been defined by multiple instances of being in the right place at the right time — and being courageous enough to seize those opportunities — perhaps her most admirable characteristic is that Armstrong also possessed the awareness to know the right place, and the right time, to take her final bow.

“I wanted to retire when I was still on top of my game. I didn’t want to be sliding down the other side and have it be noticeable. I don’t want it to be because I can’t stand up anymore,” she said.

“I didn’t want my last concert to be sitting down.”