The mother-daughter team of Penny Renoll, right, and Stephanie Renoll Blasi will be special guests at the District 9 Chorus Fest at Tunkhannock Area on Friday.
BY MICHAEL J. RUDOLF
Nearly 400 young song-filled voices will fill the Tunkhannock Area High School auditorium on Friday, May 13, as the school district plays host to the annual Pennsylvania Music Educators Association District 9 Chorus Fest.
The festival brings together the top choral vocalists from schools all over northeast Pennsylvania, said Tunkhannock Area Middle School music teacher Betsy Sprout, who is coordinating this year’s event.
Music teachers from more than two dozen school districts selected their best singers to participate in the combined choruses.
“It’s an honor thing. You bring the cream of the crop,” Sprout said.
The concert consists of performances by two groups: an elementary school chorus made up of students in fourth, fifth and sixth grades, and a middle school chorus consisting of seventh, eighth and ninth grade students.
As a special tribute to her own school’s successful music program, Sprout has decided to bring back several Tunkhannock Area alumni to work with the young singers.
“I kind of wanted to show off Tunkhannock Area grads who have gone on to work in the music field,” she said.
Highlighting the special guests will be the mother-daughter team of Penny Renoll and Stephanie Renoll Blasi.
Sprout said when she began planning the festival nearly a year ago, they were on top of her list.
“One of the first things I did, I invited the two of them to be our guest directors for the day,” Sprout said. “They were both very excited to be asked.”
After graduating from Tunkhannock Area, Penny Renoll went on to become a music teacher in the Wyalusing Area School District, and also served as choral director at Marywood University. She is married to David Renoll, who was Tunkhannock Area’s drama director for many years, and since his retirement in 2005, she has taught music for the Anne Arundel County Public Schools in Maryland.
Stephanie Renoll Blasi is the choral director in the Towanda Area School District. Like her mother, she is a Tunkhannock Area and Marywood University graduate. She also did advanced studies with the University of the Arts in Philadelphia.
“This is actually Stephanie’s very first festival as guest director,” Sprout noted.
Three other alumni will provide the music that the chorus members will sing to.
The piano accompanist for the elementary chorus will be Erin Montross, who now teaches music at Elk Lake Elementary School. After graduating from Tunkhannock Area, Montross studied music at Messiah College, and is pursuing a master’s degree at Wilkes University.
MacKenzie Cameron Anderson will be the middle school chorus’s accompanist. She is the music teacher at Choconut Elementary School in the Montrose Area School District. After high school, she continued her music training at Moravian College.
Jenilee Howell Kukuchka will provide flute accompaniment for both choruses during the festival. Upon graduating from Tunkhannock Area, she studied at Marywood University and Mansfield University, and now teaches at Lehman-Jackson Elementary School in the Lake-Lehman School District.
Students who participate in the concert are hand-selected by their music teachers, who will accompany them to the event, Sprout explained. Each teacher was invited to bring six students, she said. However, that number sometimes changes, she said. If some teachers do not bring that many, other schools may be asked to add students in the same vocal ranges.
For the elementary concert, the music is two-part harmony, because of the typically lesser range of younger voices, Sprout noted. The performers may be any number of sopranos or altos.
The music for the middle school group will be three-part harmony: soprano, alto and baritone. Teachers were asked to bring two of each, if possible.
Sprout noted that some school districts, including Tunkhannock Area, do not divide their schools along the same grade levels as the festival does. That is why some Tunkhannock Area Middle School students will be with the elementary chorus, and some with the middle school group.
The selected students have had the music for the concert for several weeks, working with their individual teachers. Friday morning will be the first time they will get to sing together, though.
The students are scheduled to arrive around 9 a.m., where they will gather at the middle school for a day of rehearsal. The elementary school chorus will practice in the auditorium, while the middle school group will use the band room.
In the afternoon, the singers will move over to the high school auditorium, which has a larger seating capacity, Sprout said.
The concert is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. The elementary chorus and middle school chorus will each perform five songs, then they will combine for a finale titled “Why We Sing.”
Sprout said putting both groups together for the finale may be a tight fit, but it will work out.
“They’re going to be stuck wherever we can stick them,” she said.
This is the second time that Tunkhannock Area has hosted Chorus Fest, Sprout pointed out. It was last held here in 2000, when it was known as Song Fest.
“It’s gotten quite a bit larger since then,” Sprout acknowledged.
Admission to Chorus Fest is $3 for adults and $1 for senior citizens and children under 12.
Chorus Fest participants
Participants in the PMEA District 9 Chorus Fest on May 13 at Tunkhannock Area High School include these students from local schools:
Elementary Chorus
Blue Ridge: Desiree Eggleston, Emily Formosa, Garrett Mansfield, Sequoia Marriott, Courtney Randall, Luke Updyke.
Elk Lake: Hyrum Bell, Samuel Bell, Eliza Bosscher, Grasyn Bushnell, Cydney Dewitt, Korena Kraynak.
Forest City: Heather Agentovich, Hayley Gillespie, Kayla Jonas, Lucas Nevins, Grace Ross, David Stackhouse.
Montrose Area (Choconut): Skylar Robinson, Randi Sperry, Elizabeth Villanella, Victoria Villanella, Dakota Walter, Madeline Weidow.
Montrose Area (Lathrop Street): Elizabeth Bennici, Brandon Curley, Megan McVaugh, Brynn Naylor, Kyra Ricci, Emily Stankiewicz.
Mountain View: Alexander MacDonald, Genevieve Maloney, Webster Roberts, Courtney Russell, Denise Vonada, Brianna Zychal.
Middle School Chorus
Blue Ridge: Kristine Carlsen, Faith Galu-Edgar, Casey Purdum, Kalieb Scheideler, Stanley Shidagis, Julia Stanley.
Elk Lake: Emily Forba, Alyssa Sickler, Christian Sprout, Rachel Sprout, Seth Tewksbury, Chris Warfle, Mark Zayleskie, Rachel Zayleskie.
Forest City: Sonny Albright, Nicole Bennett, Victoria Corey, Megan Demcevski, Neil Foster, Scott Giles, Richard Mikloiche, Doria Miller.
Montrose Area: Tony Bennici, Jacob Curley, Kira Karpov, Madison Koloski, Chris Ricci, Allanah Sullivan.
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