MOUNT VERNON — The Knox Choraliers are celebrating 13 years of giving children a chance to stretch their wings and fly as singers, with a spring concert Saturday at St. Paul’s Parish House. The ensemble, directed by Diane Dingler, gives fourth-, fifth- and sixth-graders an opportunity to work on challenging music from around the world. The concert will feature music in French, Hebrew, Latin and English.
“When you give them the challenge, they not only come through, they go far beyond your expectations,” Dingler said of her singers.
She said it was much more productive to challenge children than to limit them with preconceptions and misconceptions about what a child can do.
The gifted education program was established as a way to provide area children with the kind of resource normally only found in a larger metropolitan area. In addition to performing a wide range of existing music, the Choraliers has also had the opportunity on three occasions to commission new musical pieces from such composers as Sheena Smith and Rebecca Rossiter.
The ensemble includes children from all over the county. As Dingler puts it, all that is really required is singing in tune and being at least somewhat well-behaved.
Pianist Christa Hammond will accompany the ensemble in difficult arrangements of “J’entends le Moulin” by Donald Patriquin, “Gloria Tibi” from Leonard Bernstein’s “Mass,” settings of “Cripple Creek,” “The Cuckoo,” “Bashana Haba’ah,” “Skye Boat Song,” and “Two For the Price of One,” an arrangement that involves a quodlibet of “This Old Man” and “There Was an Old Man.” The concert will take place at 7 p.m. at St. Paul’s Parish House, 100 E. High St. There is no admission charge and the public is invited.
Christopher Patterson and Quentin Platt will assist with percussion, and Patterson, a tenor, will sing a brief recital of pieces by Mozart, Britten, Schumann, Faure and Porter as part of the program. Dingler is the gifted intervention specialist for three elementary schools in the Mount Vernon school system; before that, she taught music at the college level.
Choraliers is offered through the Gifted Education Departments of the Mount Vernon City Schools and the Knox County schools for children who have treble voices and are in grades four through eight. Younger talented students may also be accepted. For information, contact Dingler at Pleasant Street School, 393-5990, ext. 6407.
