Internationally known children's choir sings on EMU's campus

EMU has a singing group that is known world wide right on its own campus. The Shenandoah Valley Children's Choir (SVCC), with its office located in Roselawn on the EMU campus, has been active for 13 years and in that time has performed in places such as Orlando, Carnegie Hall, and Rome.

SVCC was founded in 1992 by the choir's artistic director Julia White. Since that time, the choir has acquired 200 members in four separate choirs divided by age and skill. The Angel Choir is made up of children ages six to eight. Following is the Preparatory Choir containing children ages eight to eleven. The Treble Choir consists of children ages eleven to fifteen and the Concert Choir's members range in age from 11 to 18. The Preparatory Choir and Treble Choirs have concerts twice a year. One is at Christmas and the other in the Spring. The Concert Choir's has a busier schedule, including local concerts as well as out of town concerts and tours.

All choirs that make up the SVCC meet on Monday nights to rehearse. They practice for an hour and a half, focusing on vocal production, breathing, performing skill and diction. Their practices emphasize the Kodaly approach, which is a set of principles for teaching music education, defined by Hungarian ethnomusicologist, Zoltan Kodaly. The members of SVCC learn to sing a cappella and two- to four-part harmony. They study a broad range of choir literature including classical music, folk music and music of many different cultures and countries. While SVCC sings both secular and religious songs, the emphasis of those songs is always that of love, nature and friendship.

Student Bethany Blouse has been assisting with the choir this year. She has been helping Assistant Director Joy Anderson with the Preparatory Choir. "It is such an honor and privilege to work with this choir, a group that is known nationally," Blouse said. "The skills that these students are learning are incredible, and skills I want to include in my own teaching one day." Blouse noted how hard the children work. The practice schedule is rigorous, with choir members learning to read music in one day and having parts of songs memorized in less than an hour. "It's sad that a nationally known choir is here at EMU and most students haven't even heard of them," Blouse said. "I have learned so many things from just being to a few practices."

The Shenandoah Valley Children's Choir's next concert will be Sunday, November 20 at 7 p.m. in EMU's Lehman Auditorium. The Concert and Treble Choirs will be singing with accompaniment from the Shenandoah Valley Youth Orchestra.