St. Mary-Oak Ridge music program excels

St. Mary students (from left) Joey Wood, Anna Kasemir, Jacqueline Audet, Sydney Mesmer, Kayla Kupsch, Paige Halcrow, Elizabeth Brands, and Ian Kilevori made the All-East Honor Choir.

St. Mary School in Oak Ridge participated in the East Tennessee Vocal Association’s annual All-East Honor Choir event held on Nov. 18-19 at Maryville College and the Clayton Center for the Arts.

This year’s All-East Junior High/Middle School Honor Choir was made up of more than 300 advanced seventh- and eighth-grade vocal students from 35 schools throughout East Tennessee. Other honor choirs at the event included the Ninth Grade Honor Choir, Women’s High School Honor Choir, Men’s High School Honor Choir, and the Mixed High School Honor Choir.

The students learned and memorized their voice part on five pieces of music before attending the honors chorus. The challenging repertoire allowed them to sing in three languages and in a variety of three- and four-part voicings.

Literature from this year’s concert included “Cantate Hodie” by Mary Lynn Lightfoot, “Laudamus Te” by Antonio Vivaldi, “Battle Above the Clouds” by Vicki Tucker Courtney, “Give Me Your Stars to Hold” by Richard Waters, and “Il Canivale de Venezia” by Gioacchino Rossini.

This year’s conductor was Jane Morison, the artistic director of the Mountain Empire Children’s Choral Academy in Virginia and a member of the music faculty at King University.

St. Mary fifth- and sixth-grade students Emily Corbett, Victoria Corbett, Ilse Dale, Sophie Sherlock, Maggie Trent, and Bethany Walsh were recently selected to participate in the Tennessee Treble Honor Choir. The TNTHC is an auditioned choir made up of 130 to 150 fifth- and sixth-grade students from schools throughout Tennessee, who perform for the Tennessee Music Education Association (TMEA) Conference held in April at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel in Nashville.

The St. Mary Crusader Ensemble along with eighth-grade singers performed at Methodist Hospital in Oak Ridge on Dec. 2 for the employee holiday celebration.

For more information about the St. Mary school, staff, and student body, visit school.stmarys​oakridge.org.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *