The East Hampton High School choir sang Friday night at New York City’s legendary Carnegie Hall for the Choirs of America Festival.
The opportunity arose out of an audition tape sent in last year by the choir director, Melanie Freyre. East Hampton was one of 16 ensembles coming from 15 states that were chosen. About 300 people made the trip from East Hampton to attend the concert.
It was “a once-in-a-lifetime, landmark performance, for sure,” Ms. Freyre said. “They also are a perfect example of what hard work and dedication can achieve. This is really a product of their work since they were so little. All those ‘do, re, me’s are worth it.”
The choir, including 53 of the 70 students enrolled in the program, sang “If Music Be the Food of Love” by David Dickau, accompanied by East Hampton’s own Amanda Jones on piano. They also sang several pieces as part of a larger festival choir of 800 students, including a work commissioned just for the festival, titled “Hold Fast to Dreams” by Rosephanye Powell.
The festival choir was directed by Rollo Dilworth, a sought-after composer, conductor, and teacher from St. Louis. He also composed an original song for the occasion, “Songs for the People.”
East Hampton students benefited from a Broadway-style workshop with a lead performer from the show “The Book of Mormon,” and they got a little starry-eyed when they met Andrea Ramsey, another well-known composer.
“She walks in and one of our students said, ‘She looks familiar,’ “ Ms. Freyre said. “I said, ‘Oh my goodness, we’ve basically been singing your pieces for the last 20 years.’ She did a whole clinic with them.”
Ms. Freyre told her students to put this accomplishment down on their résumés. “These are the things they are going to remember when they are grown up and sitting in the audience of their own kids’ school concerts,” she said. “Whether they end up a music major or not, this has all the implications of hard work, dedication, passion, teamwork, commitment, and being able to take criticism and direction.”