EHS Students Sing for Spring

It was standing room only on Thursday night as melodies filled the Emmaus High School auditorium.

Students in grades nine to 12 dressed in a variety of colors from bold spring hues to more serious black gowns as they performed for a packed house of family and friends.

Rita Cortez, EHS musical director, ran the show as groups of students including the “Concert Choir,” “Chorale,” “Women’s Choir,” “AccaBella,” and “Fermata Nowehere” performed various numbers for the crowd.

Selections included almost 30 individual song titles. Student musicians accompanied several vocal performances.

The fluid fingers of pianists Eric Wiscount, Kayanna Garrett, and Althea Khoo added some pizzazz to the melodies offered by the EHS choir.

On strings, Timothy Su, Greg Gennaro, and Fergus Watkins performed during the number “Ave Verum Corpus, K. 618, by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Maxwell Watkins impressed guests with his skills on the electric cello as he accompanied singers in “Nada Te Turbe” by Joan Szymko.

The popular groups “AccaBella,” a select group of young female vocalists, and “Fermata Nowhere,” the group's male counterpart, had the audience laughing, clapping and stomping their feet as they performed numbers by OneRepublic (Secrets), Nelly (Just a Dream), and Cee-Lo Green (Forget You).

To Cortez’s surprise, the senior girls performed a song they'd prepared in her honor – “Psalm 23” – resulting in an emotional response from Cortez as well as the other members of the choir.

At the conclusion of the concert, EHS seniors in the choir were acknowledged while high school memories were shared on an overhead in the form of a photographic slideshow.

It was noted in the concert program that 33 students from EHS have been selected to perform at the Pennsylvania Music Educators Association Choral Festivals.