Chatham Choir Offered Unique Educational Opportunity

Chatham Voices, a treble auditioned choir at Chatham High School, will proudly perform Dr. Rosephanye Powell’s empowering gospel piece, Still I Rise at the Chatham HS Choral Concert on May 16th at 7:30 PM.

At the end of March, Voices had the opportunity to have a personal Skype session with the composer herself. Kenneth Bryson, CHS’ Choral Director came by this opportunity for the choir. He explained his jump at the opportunity by saying that “too often musicians perform pieces and never have a connection to the person that wrote the piece. In many instances the composers may no longer even be living. Still I Rise by Dr. Powell is a piece that the women of Chatham Voices really connected to, so I thought what a unique opportunity it would for them to actually be able to speak with the composer of the piece they connected so much to.”

Dr. Powell took questions from each of the choir members, touching upon her career in music, her draw towards gospel music, and the strengthening message behind Still I Rise. The experience took the choir’s connection with the piece to a new level as Dr. Powell explained the inspiration for the piece as Maya Angelou’s renown poem, Still I Rise.

The conversation was even brought to the piano at one point, where Dr. Powell played and sang through several measures of the anthem, reminding the girls to ‘bring the funk’ and ‘have fun with it’. Choir member Hallie Kaisand, a junior at CHS, says “Her enthusiasm and passion was so contagious”, adding that “you could tell how much this song meant to her from the way she spoke about it.”

Dr. Rosephanye Powell resides in Auburn, Alabama and is a Professor of Voice at Auburn University. Along with being a music educator, Dr. Powell is a successful composer-in-residence, clinician, adjudicator, conductor, and performer.

Join Chatham Voices on Tuesday, May 16th to hear this piece and many others performed by the CHS Choral Program (Chatham Voices, Concert Choir, and Select Choir).