Many young and talented singers from the Shanksville-Stonycreek High School and Middle School Chorus raised their voices in beautiful harmony for the 2016 Somerset County Chorus event that took place October 21-22.

They, along with several other students from all around the county came together for this two day event to learn new skills and create breathtaking music for all to hear at their final concert.

County Chorus is held every year for high school and middle school students who have a talent for singing. The Somerset County Chorus includes county schools such as Shanksville, Berlin, Somerset, Windber, Conemaugh Township, Rockwood, Johnstown Christian, Meyersdale, Salisbury, and North Star. Students were chosen by their choral directors, to participate in county chorus based on their singing ability. All the county schools came together for this event to create beautiful music, and later perform in front of an audience of parents, friends and family in a final concert.

Each year, a different Somerset County school hosts the event, and this year county chorus was held at the Conemaugh Township School District. The practices with all of the participating schools and the final concert performance were held in the school's auditorium.

Along with choosing a location for the event each year, a guest director is chosen to lead the high school choir. This year’s guest director was the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown Choir Director, Jeffrey L. Webb. Middle school choir was led by Rockwood School District Choir Director, Mr. Doug Spiri, who directed their pieces.

Preparation for this event was much needed, but Shanksville Chorus Director Mrs. Bush, helped the Shanksville students with their music with several after school rehearsals prior to the event. Each student was responsible for knowing their music before the event.

The high school choir had several challenging pieces and some songs were in different languages. The African song was to be memorized by the choir and be sung in the aisles of the audience, and they all were able to do this for the concert.

“I think that the chorus performed very well considering that we got a standing ovation at the end of our last piece. It just was a great experience overall, I met a lot of new people and accomplished the challenge of singing harder music and learning to sing in different languages.” Matthew Prosser added.

The middle school chorus had various different types of music to sing. They used the typical piano accompaniment for most of the songs, but for one of the selections, percussion instruments were used to spice up the performance. Shanksville Middle School Chorus member, Annalina Brant, was chosen to play a unique beat for one of their concert pieces.

“It was my first county chorus ever, so I didn’t know what to expect. I had a lot of fun even though some of the songs were difficult. It was a great experience overall,” Natalie Davis explained.

Several skilled Shanksville High School and Middle School Chorus members showed off their talent by participating in the 2016 Somerset County Chorus. Prior preparation with their school choir director, Mrs. Bush, allowed them to focus on learning new skills during their time at this event. Although the music was challenging, the Shanksville students along with chorus members from other various schools, were able to overcome that challenge and perform a concert worthy a standing ovation.