Imagine being on stage at your high school auditorium singing with the choir, or performing a solo, in front of your peers and family. Or imagine being part of a musical, where you must remember your lines while moving on stage. Now, imagine being at the University of Louisville performing with their choir program and other high school students with over three hundred voices and hundreds of ears listening.
While the thought of performing in a crowd of that size might cause stage fright, for four freshmen at Lynn Camp it was what they have been preparing for. Arabella Pennington (soprano), Kaitlyn Golden (alto), Jacob Buchanan (tenor) and Bryson Riffe (baritone) had the opportunity to rehearse with the University of Louisville Cardinal Singers, a world-champion ensemble, and a host of top choral singers from the region to present Beethoven’s Mass in C and Eric Whitacre’s Cloudburst and Sleep.
As choir director Jackie Melton reflects on their performance she states that this is only the beginning of what the four freshmen will be able to accomplish before graduating from high school. As Melton states, their passion for music is lifetime. “However they choose to carry that on, they will always have that because your voice is part of you, your ear is part of you, and more importantly your heart and soul are part of you and that’s where the music comes from.”
Melton and the four choir students recently shared with us their experience at the University of Louisville, why they are in the choir, and their future plans.