By Mariah Taylor ’27
On March 7th, 2026, Conestoga Valley High School’s choir hosted a performance at 5:00pm with alumni and staff who were in the high school’s chorus when they were students. Nearly 40 community members signed up for the event. The high school choir currently holds more than 80 students from all grade levels.
The community choir concert is an annual event. Junior Kayla Ressler said that “being with the community and seeing everyone in the audience listening to the music” is something she looks forward to.
Extra dedication and hard work is put into this concert. This concert is different than any of the other concerts, based on the fact that more people are performing on the stage than usual. Not only that, but the alumni that are signed up to perform have limited time to rehearse with the high school’s choir.
About a week before the concert, the high school will typically hold a rehearsal late after school for community members to come rehearse the song that they will be performing in. Until the rehearsal the morning of the concert, that is the only time they are able to practice with members of the high school choir. The morning rehearsal on that Saturday is about an hour, and is held in the high school auditorium.
Although the alumni only perform one song with the high schoolers, a lot still goes into that piece. For instance, getting all of the voice parts right prior to that rehearsal is important, because some members who may no longer sing, or don’t sing consistently anymore may struggle when performing if they are placed in the wrong vocal part.
With so many more people involved, they need to work on their spacing on the risers. Ressler said, “I focus on my part and making sure I sing the right notes and stay on beat,” and that helps her with difficult challenges they may come across.
Riley Fidler (12) said that this is a great way to bring people of the community together “because music brings people together and this is a perfect way of doing it.”
A hard song that was challenging some of high school singers was “I Am Growing Flowers” by Timothy C. Takach. This piece was challenging because of the different entrances each section of the choir had to do, and because for some it was out of their range. Grace Martin (11) said, “one of the challenges I faced and accomplished was singing the piece ‘Flowers.’ It is a very difficult piece, but fun once it all came together.”
At the concert, the choir performed several pieces as a full choir, and then had the alumni and community choir members join them for the song, “Let The River Run,” which was in a popular 80s movie about New York, Working Girl. The choir had sang it in a different key than the original song, and they added a “coda,” which is where you repeat a section of the song where you would least expect it.
The song had a fun upbeat tempo with the piano and drums. It even had a tambourine and a shaker, which added texture to the piece. The original song was much slower than how the choir performed it, creating a very different vibe.
Grace Martin (11) stated, “Music is a source of happiness for many, so hosting a community concert is a very good way to bring us together.”