JoAnn and Jim Norman met in Washington DC in the mid 1980’s through a mutual friend who worked with JoAnn in vocational rehabilitation of the hearing impaired and deaf for the state of Maryland. Jim was doing medical research with the National Academy of Sciences, following a stint of teaching statistics at the the universities of Massachusetts and Georgia. Once married, they studied singing in a series of courses at the Smithsonian Institution and joined the early service choir at historic Christ Episcopal church (attended by both Washington and Lee) in Alexandria, Virginia. In 2005, following retirement, they moved to Southport, NC where they joined the choir of St. Philips under the direction of Debby Skillman.
In Virginia, they sang several years with the Vienna Choral Society and while in Southport, were members of Sea Notes, a Brunswick county community choir, for fifteen years.
Last year, they relocated to Wilmington, joining St. Paul’s last October. Besides music, JoAnn has a passion for gardening, making pottery, and playing bridge. Jim has been reading since around five and is attracted to the humanities, music and poetry, sacred teachings of the various world spiritual traditions, meditation, and the age old questions of faith and knowledge. By previous marriage JoAnn has two daughters and four granddaughters and Jim a son and two granddaughters.