By Presley Harrison, Shield Editor
For the first time since the early 2000s, North Raleigh Christian Academy boasts a treble choir, or a choir composed only of female voices. Not only does this group perform in high level competitions against other school choirs, but also the ensemble sings at large-scale venues such as Five County Stadium, home of the Carolina Mudcats, a local minor league baseball team.
On Sept. 6, 2024, the NRCA treble choir and choral director, Lauren Simmons, headed to Zebulon, North Carolina, to sing the national anthem before the Mudcats played the Delmarva Shorebirds. Near the end of last year, Simmons was contacted by a representative from the Mudcats association about the prospect of performing at a baseball game this year.
“I thought it would just be a really fun way for us to have a performance at the very beginning of the year,” Simmons said.
Though the appearance came not long after the group was put together, Simmons and the girls were able to quickly prepare the song in time for the game. “The national anthem is such a small piece, like 30 seconds, so it’s a very small piece to put together, and [this year’s choir has] very advanced singers [so] we were able to put it together in the first two weeks of school, and it was a really fun performance,” said Simmons.
Performances like these are partly thanks to the distinct sound that a treble choir is able to create as opposed to a mixed choir. Beverly Wrobel, the student director and president of the honors ensemble and treble choir, said, “I feel like our voices mix together so much better than they do when we had [a mixed group], because the balance is so much better. I also really like being able to do songs that are more light.”
The choral program’s addition of the treble choir will introduce new and exciting sounds to the group’s future performances, like the fifth through 12th grade Christmas concert scheduled for Dec. 6. “The treble choir is kind of new for NRCA, but I think that we’ll be able to do a wide range of music that showcases the different voices [of our] advanced singers and [allows us] to do some really challenging things,” Simmons said.
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