Windham High School’s well-known student choir is prepping for a big-time performance at a big-time venue in a big-time city.
“It’s just so cool to sing at Carnegie Hall,” said Greg Meader, stage manager and a tenor for the Windham Chamber Singers. “To sing there is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that performers all over the world dream of.”
The Windham Chamber Singers, above, are rehearsing and preparing for their upcoming NYC tour.
The Windham Chamber Singers will have that opportunity in just a few weeks when, with conductor and director Richard Nickerson, the group performs as part of the Maine Festival Chorus at the New York City concert venue.
The Windham Chamber Singers is a vocal ensemble with 40 high school students from Windham and Raymond. According to its website, the group “gained international attention in 1996 by winning the Prize of Vienna at the 25th International Music Festival in Vienna, Austria.” During the group’s 30-year history, it has performed for national news outlets, shared the stage with a number of famous performers, and sang in front of two U.S. presidents.
Each spring, the Chamber Singers takes the show on the road. This year the singers will be making a trip to the Big Apple to perform with a number of other choirs as the Maine Festival Chorus at Carnegie Hall on April 17. The group also has a solo performance planned for April 15 at the St. Patrick’s Cathedral, which Nickerson said will be entirely music in the style of sacred a cappella (without instrumental accompaniment).
A total of about 200 singers ages 14 to 80 will perform as the Maine Festival Chorus, which Nickerson and another conductor will lead. The full ensemble will rehearse for the first time the Friday and Saturday before the concert, and present the concert Sunday night.
Nickerson said the New York City tour is a little different from past tours because the students are only performing in two venues. In years prior, including last year’s tour around northern Maine, the students performed at up to 15 different locations. This year the students will spend four days in New York, giving them a chance to explore the city.
The Carnegie Hall concert will have a mixed repertoire, according to Nickerson. One of the songs on the program is a “peaceful, reflective a cappella piece” called “Jenny,” he said. Nickerson is particularly excited to perform this song because its composer, Nick Myers, and lyricist, Ryan Kerr, will be in the audience.
The chance to perform a song for its composer is exciting because it’s “rare to have that opportunity,” said Nickerson.
Jacqueline Gleason-Boure is president of the Chamber Singers. A senior, she has been in the group since her freshman year. She is an alto II, the lowest female vocal part.
Gleason-Boure said she enjoys the Windham Chamber Singers because it allows her and fellow students to “experience a type of music we wouldn’t normally seek out in day-to-day life.”
She said she is intimidated by the idea of singing at Carnegie Hall because “it’s the place you go when you’ve made it,” she said, adding that the choir will have “to put in so much work to make it happen.”
To make it to New York, the Windham Chamber Singers rehearse regularly one day each week for three hours, and organize a number of fundraisers to help pay for the trip. The group is raising money through a Go Fund Me page online, and by individual and business sponsorships.
As well, the choir will perform a preview of the New York City tour concert for Music with a Mission on Saturday at the North Windham Union Church. Proceeds from ticket sales benefit the church, as well as local nonprofits. Proceeds from a raffle and silent auction, held at the concert, will benefit the Windham Chamber Singers.
Being a choir member has taught Gleason-Boure about more than just music, she said, but also how to be a team player.
“It works in fundraising and the sound of our choir,” she said. “We all have to put in our part to make it sound better.”
Nickerson, who has been choral director at Windham since the Chamber Singers’ inception 30 years ago, is now teaching the children of some of his former students.
“I’ve got great students,” he said. “It’s a great community to be a part of.”
Gleason-Boure hopes to continue singing chamber music once she graduates, but is worried she “won’t find a choir that feels the same way that Windham Chamber Singers feels to me,” she said. “But no matter what, I want to keep listening to this type of music.”
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