October 23, 2023
250+ high school students to perform in SIU choral festival Oct. 26
CARBONDALE, Ill. — More than 250 high school students from Illinois and Kentucky will perform this week in Southern Illinois University Carbondale’s Shryock Auditorium as part of a high school choral festival.
The free, public concert is at 6 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 26. The concert will culminate a day of activity for the students, said Susan Davenport, professor and director of choral activities in the School of Music.
In all, students from 12 schools in the region will be participating this year. The festival started in 2018 and was on hiatus a few years during the COVID-19 pandemic before returning in 2022.
After students meet at 8:30 a.m. Thursday in Shryock Auditorium for 20 to 30 minutes and meet this year’s guest conductors, they will go into to small group rehearsals, or sectionals, in eight different rooms in Shryock Auditorium and Altgeld Hall, with local teachers assisting in the rehearsals.
Media advisory
Reporters, photographers and news crews are welcome to attend rehearsals from 10:45-11:30 a.m. and between 1-4 p.m. For more information or to make arrangements, contact Mason Rice, a teaching assistant and graduate master’s student in music at mason.rice@siu.edu.
About 10:45 a.m. freshmen and sophomores will move to a treble choir full rehearsal with guest conductor Monica Bertrand, a 2008 SIU Carbondale graduate in the music teacher education program and director of choirs at St. Charles (Illinois) East High School, while Davenport conducts junior and senior treble choir full rehearsals. Thomas Frost, who earned a master’s degree in music in 2020 from SIU Carbondale and is choir director at Dyersburg (Tennessee) State Community College, is guest conductor for the tenor/bass choir full rehearsal. The rehearsals will be in both Shryock Auditorium and Altgeld Hall.
The students will then break for lunch, return for more rehearsals and then a snack supper before performing at 6 p.m.
The SIU Concert Choir, under Davenport’s direction, will also perform.
Participating students are from:
- Anna-Jonesboro Community High School.
- Carbondale Community High School.
- Carterville High School.
- Christopher Community High School.
- Columbia High School.
- Frankfort Community High School, West Frankfort.
- Litchfield High School.
- McCracken County High School, Paducah, Kentucky.
- Murphysboro High School.
- Pinckneyville Community High School.
- Sparta High School.
- Vandalia High School.