PHS Takes on Regionals: Seven Students Hit the Right Notes at Yearly Choir Festival

Delaney Nichols, Student Writer

The Pennridge students who will be attending the PMEA Regionals

This Thursday, February 27, marks the beginning of the Pennsylvania Region Six Choir Festival for which seven Pennridge High School students were chosen to participate. Those selected include: Emily Jo and Christine Hayes (soprano), Carly Levy and Abigail Rose (alto), Elias Kenworthy (tenor), and Corey Shipman and Jack Boyd (bass).

To get here, students had to go through a vigorous auditioning process that began at the district level around November. All interested students had to prepare two songs, “O Magnum Mysterium” and “How Lovely are the Messengers”, to audition for the school’s choir director. From there, Mr. Mosser selected two students from each voice part to officially tryout in front of the PMEA judges. Eleven students were chosen for district choir, where these seven students then re-auditioned and made it into Regionals.

Our newsgroup interviewed Elias Kenworthy, the only tenor from Pennridge chosen for Regionals. Eli has participated in these selective choirs all through high school and is an avid member of Pennridge’s music department overall. When asked to describe the type of music that will be performed at Regionals, he stated that there is, “only one piece that is not in English”, a stark contrast from the districts music he sang earlier this year that was “almost entirely in Spanish”. Additionally, Eli claims that the music lacks an “African Spiritual piece”, which is odd to him because “there has always been one” during the years he participated. Nonetheless, Eli is excited for the festival and is very prepared, having done extensive practice with Mr. Mosser, as well as with his personal vocal coach.

Furthermore, our newsgroup also interviewed Mr. Mosser, the choral director at Pennridge. Mosser has “held numerous after-school rehearsals to work with the students” and believes each student to be more than ready for the festival. Mosser has been involved with PMEA for 37 years now, but is happy to say that this year has been a new record for the amount of students chosen to participate in Regionals. 

All of the students chosen for Regionals are members of Pennridge’s Concert Choir, an audition-only, upperclassmen group that performs at seasonal concerts for the school, and multiple adjudications in the state. Additionally, many of the students are also involved in Chamber Choir, which is another prestigious, audition-only upperclassmen group that also performs at the seasonal concerts and various community-events. 

The festival will go from Thursday up until Saturday, February 29 and is being held at North Penn High School in Lansdale. Parents, family, and community members are welcome to attend the group’s performance at 11:00 Saturday morning. Pennridge wishes luck to all of our talented students as they take on Regionals.