Spreading the joy of music among local children, the Elk Mountain Community Youth Choir is rehearsing and looking for more new members who love to sing.
The choir is led by director Dawn Kenneda, a three-year Elk Mountain resident who has a bachelor’s degree in music, with a focus in vocal performance. She taught privately for 12 years and publicly for four, and leads worship every Sunday at the Elk Mountain Community Church with the help of her two daughters.
Looking to share her love of music with youth, Kenneda began the choir last September and rehearses with them at the Elk Mountain Community Church each Friday. She said the choir currently has four Elk Mountain youths and six Saratoga youths, and has been a great way to keep them busy and involved in music.
“My two daughters who wanted vocal lessons inspired me to start the choir, and in Elk Mountain there aren’t a lot of musical opportunities for kids,” Kenneda said. “We started with four and then jumped to six, and then this summer we jumped to 10 members with the help of flyers and word of mouth. It took a while for word to get out, and the community has been very supportive. It has been really cool to watch the kids sing and grow vocally.”
Kenneda said the choir is open to all fourth- to 12th-grade students in Carbon County who have an interest in singing. The choir held its second performance June 18, and is preparing for its third one in October, which Kenneda said will include patriotic songs.
“We’ve had two performances so far, with the first one being a closed recital for family to break in our young musicians, but the second one was open to the public,” she said. “Our next one will be in October and open to the public. We have our recitals here at the church because it has the best acoustics and sound travels nicely.”
For each hour-long rehearsal, Kenneda said students warm-up and then rehearse, or learn new pieces for future performances. They also spend the first half of rehearsal working technique, tone, blend, style, reading music and singing without looking at music. The second half of rehearsal is spent working on songs to perform.
Covering a wide range of styles, Kenneda said the choir sings everything from old pop songs, Latin hymns, traditional choir pieces, gospel songs, classical pieces and sacred hymns.
“I like to pick songs that are representative of things we’re learning, or songs that include things like two- or-three-part harmonies or vocal support and blend,” she said.
The choir currently rehearses at 10:30 a.m. at the community church, but Kenneda said that time will change to Friday afternoons or evenings once school starts up again.
“Music has always been a part of my life, so the biggest thing is watching the students develop confidence as musicians and find harmonies that sound good,” she said. “Your voice is the one instrument you can carry with you wherever you go. I would like to include as many students as possible, and I would love to see continued growth and expansion.”
The Elk Mountain Community Youth Choir currently meets every from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m. each Friday at the Elk Mountain Community Church. To sign up a child, call Dawn Kenneda at 307-348-7311.
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