PORT ANGELES — Five days singing and sightseeing in New York City did not seem to tire anybody out.
These are teenagers, mind you, who flew east early last Tuesday morning for performances at the 9/11 Memorial and in three cathedrals, not to mention visits to many of the city’s glittering spots.
Their final performances took place from morning until late afternoon Saturday in a national competition held at St. Bartholomew’s, a 180-year-old Episcopal church on Park Avenue.
Five ensembles and 120 students — the Men’s, Women’s and Symphonic choirs, and the smaller Bella Voce and Vocal Unlimited choirs — competed in the New York Heritage Festival, an adjudication of some 30 school choirs from across the United States.
Not only did the men, the women, the Symphonics and Vocal Unlimted all bring home five gold awards, but also the Port Angeles High School Choral Department won the Choir Sweepstakes prize, while Beth Ann Brackett, 17, received an Outstanding Soloist Award.
The singers, who returned home Sunday, were in class with choir director Jolene Dalton Gailey on Monday, still on the giddy side.
When Gailey asked them to name their highlights, Grace Sanwald, 16, recalled the first performance, back on Wednesday.
It was at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, a Gothic-Romanesque Revival landmark where the choir offered “How Can I Keep from Singing?”
“I liked that performance,” Grace said, “with Mary Beth’s solo echoing back at us.”
At St. John, Gailey had asked her singers to pause, just for an instant, to hear the cathedral effect.
The students and their audiences — about 40 chaperones and the people who happened in — got to experience this again at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, where after Gailey sent an audition recording, they performed last Thursday.
As for the choir director, Friday’s performance at the 9/11 Memorial plaza in Lower Manhattan was an unforgettable moment.
“You guys,” Gailey said. “At 9/11. That touched me more than any other performance up until that point.”
When the Symphonics’ 48 voices rose, she caught her breath, and felt the tears come.
Isaac Sussman, a member of the choir, said he felt them too. Like the rest, he kept singing as passers-by gathered around the performers.
“Could you believe how quickly people came? I turned around, and like, whoa,” Gailey said.
Other students marveled at the sights: the Statue of Liberty, the Broadway musical “Aladdin,” Times Square,
ice skating at Rockefeller Center.
One member of the Men’s Choir said he’s not a big fan of dance but was impressed by the performers in the other Broadway musical on their itinerary, Jerome Robbins’ “On the Town.”
Now the choirs are preparing for their final concert of the 2014-2015 school year.
It will be an evening of songs and rhythms from Africa on June 3; the 7:30 p.m. concert will take place in the Port Angeles High School Performing Arts Center, 304 E. Park Ave.
Admission will be by donation, and proceeds will benefit the Captain Joseph House Foundation, the organization named after Port Angeles founder Betsy Reed Schultz’ son Joseph, an Army Green Beret who died in Afghanistan in May 2011.
Her former bed and breakfast, the Tudor Inn, is being converted into a getaway-refuge for the families of military service members killed in combat.
________
Features Editor Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5062, or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
