Peterborough Children's Choir

Our Beginning

In the Summer of 1997, Maria Belva and David Vernier offered a two week workshop to teach young singers the joy of making music together. Twenty singers participated. After ten days of rehearsal, a full length concert was presented, to a standing-room-only audience. Works of Britten, Vaughan Williams and Handel were included in this concert.

David Vernier and Maria Belva

This successful experience led Belva and Vernier to start a community children’s choir, providing instruction in vocal technique, music reading and rehearsal discipline. The ongoing opportunity for public performance encouraged personal and musical growth for over 150 young people.

Our Mission

To provide a place for young singers to share the rewarding experience of making music together.
To teach singing techniques, musicianship and the fundamentals of concert performance.
To perform the highest quality music available for young voices.
To help each chorister develop a lifelong appreciation of music.
To actively participate in the musical life of the community.
To become one of the finest treble choirs in New England.

Our Choirs

Trebles

Grades 2 through 4
Meeting for one hour per week on Monday afternoons from 4 to 5 p.m.
Foundations of singing technique and music reading introduced
Concert etiquette and performance skills stressed
Learn mostly unison and two-part music
Join Choristers and Cecilia Ensemble for combined concert pieces
We ask for a Parental Volunteer to be on hand to assist at every Treble choir rehearsal

The audition will determine the child’s ability to match pitch, their level of maturity, and their willingness to sing. A child 7 or younger may be asked to begin in the Skylarks to gain more singing experience.

Choristers

Grades 5 through 8
Meeting for 1¹/₂ hours per week on Wednesday afternoons from 3:30 to 5 p.m.
Concentrate on more advanced ensemble singing and music reading
Expected to have perfected concert etiquette and performance skills
Learn more complex two- and three-part music
Join in some combined works for concerts.

A Chorister must be able to match pitch and hold their part against another. An audition will also determine the singer’s range so s/he can be placed in a voice part accordingly.

Cecilia Ensemble

Young women, grades 9 through 12
Meeting for 1³/₄ hours per week on Tuesday afternoons from 3:15 to 5 p.m.
Learn more sophisticated music, from unison to four-part
Members must be self-motivated, responsible individuals, and accomplished musicians
Instrumental study or private voice lessons are strongly encouraged
European concert tours planned every other year
Participation in extra fundraising activities is expected

An audition will determine the singer’s voice part, as well as the level of sight reading, pitch control, and vocal memory.

Cecilia Ensemble members are highly motivated singers, many of whom continue vocal music studies in college and beyond.

Skylarks — Training Choir

Ages 5-7
Meets Mondays 4:00-4:45
Learning essential choral skills
Excellent way to begin PCC
Fun and educational

This is a fun way for a child to be introduced to choral singing. Laura Pierce, the director of Monadnock Kindermusik, leads this group. The audition is a way for the director to meet the child and parents. Every child who wants to sing is accepted.

The Peterborough Children’s Choir

The Peterborough Children’s Choir was founded by Maria Belva and David Vernier in the summer of 1997. The purpose was to create an opportunity for young singers to develop their voices while learning fundamentals of musicianship, music reading, performance, and the joyful rewards of singing the highest quality music.

During the past ten years the choir has grown to 70 singers, grades 2-12, in three different groups: Trebles (grades 2-4), Choristers (5-8), and Cecilia Ensemble (9-12). The Skylarks is a training choir for children ages 5-7.

We have a strongly supportive parent group and a steadily growing community and regional audience. Our concerts feature the highest quality music for young voices, much of it specially composed for children’s choir.

We offer our own concerts each winter and spring, and have presented programs with the Conval High School Chorus and at Children in the Arts Day, Hancock’s Old Home Days, Rivermead, and for two benefit concerts in Antrim. We have traveled to Toronto to hear the internationally acclaimed Toronto Children’s Chorus and to perform with the Toronto Waldorf School choir. Our ensembles have performed in an original Peterborough Players musical and as the chorus of gingerbread children in Raylynmor Opera’s production of Hansel and Gretel. In 2004 we performed with the Monadnock Chorus under the direction of Dr. Carroll Lehman, and in 2005, with Judy Collins at the Colonial Theater in Keene, NH.

The Cecilia Ensemble made a concert tour of Italy in February, 2003. We stayed in Lucca, Florence, and Como, with a day excursion to Pisa. Our public concerts were performed in local churches and cathedrals. The girls became ambassadors of peace and goodwill by bringing their beautiful voices to another country, and experiencing some of the incomparable artistic treasures of one of the world’s oldest and richest cultures.

In 2005 the Cecilia Ensemble traveled to Germany and The Czech Republic where they performed for the public in Leipzig, Dresden, and Prague. In Usti nad Labem the Cecilia Ensemble performed with the Ustecki Detski Sbor, a children’s choir near Prague. In 2007 we traveled to Spain and performed a concert with Els Virolets of Palafrugell in Catalonia. We are planning a trip to Austria and Hungary in 2009.

The Peterborough Children’s Choir is a non-profit organization. If you would like information about this group, if you know a young person who would like to audition, or you would be interested in helping to support us with a tax-deductible donation, please call Maria Belva at (603) 924-2055, write to the above address, or visit the choir web-site at www.pcchoir.org