Why did I want to create this Choral Festival?

I’ve been singing in choirs since I was eight years old. I started with the Academy Boys Choir of Philadelphia. It was part of the University of the Arts. For five years I sang in that choir all over the Philadelphia area including on July 4, 1976 for the Bicentennial and President Gerald Ford at Valley Forge State Park. We traveled to Europe when I was 12 and sang in London and Paris. We competed in the International Musical Eisteddfod in Llangollen, Wales. While in high school, I sang in the Fred Waring Choral Music Workshop at Penn State with high school and college age singers for two weeks in the summer. I loved it so much, I went back the following summer. I’ve been in and directed many choirs since. I’ve sung in several NPM Convention Choral Institutes, where parish music directors from around the country spend several intensive days under the direction of a master director to either perform a concert or serve as the choir at the Convention Eucharist. And I’ve enjoyed directing all my parish choirs for the past 23 years.

I felt it was time to create a festival setting in our area where singers of different backgrounds and choral experiences could come and share in what I, along with what my co-conductors Bill Alford and Sandy Hayes-Licitra, have to offer. It would give the singers and us directors a chance to be part of a larger and more diverse choir, a chance to do some longer and more complex sacred music from various periods and in various styles. It also gives everyone the opportunity to work with and learn from other choral directors and make new friends.