Deer Creek Chorale perform for new audiences; Young performers take on tour

     Julie Culotta, a former North Harford middle school teacher, pursued teaching in a new way after leaving the school. When she first stepped away from teaching, Culotta said she started “directing community youth choirs similar to Deer Creek Youth Choir but actually down in Annapolis.” 

  When she moved back to the North Harford region around 2016, “Marty Banghart reached out and asked that […] [she] would start a youth chorale under the Deer Creek Chorale, which is the adult organization.”

  Culotta the group started with just “17 little singers in grades primarily 4-5.” But from that point on the group grew to be “about 38 singers.” Now the Deer Creek Youth Chorale also includes grades “6th through 9th.”

  The musical instructor explained how the “kids are of different abilities and experiences, but they all come together.” Another unique quality about the Chorale is that it “brings kids together from a very wide area.”  She explained how they have kids coming from Pennsylvania, Hereford, Baltimore County, Towson, just to name a few. Culotta said she doesn’t think they have “more than two singers from any school.”

  When she evaluates students, it’s not about  the schools they are from, but if “they’re ready to sit and focus during their rehearsals and they really want to be there. It’s more of a vocal placement audition, listening voice and what they need to work on.”

  Cullotta added that “the chorale has this big service component to them that every year they pick a nonmusical nonprofit organization to partner with and to kind of give […] [the Deer Creek musicians] something to give back to the community.” This year they have been partnering with FirstFruitFarms.

  The youth chorale “took their first tour […] in June of 2019 to Cincinnati. The Cincinnati Youth Choir is a similar organization in study. They host a summer festival for choirs to come to.” Through these festivals, the group got their “first taste of traveling together and meeting other choirs.”

  These trips also gave them “the opportunity to work with other conductors or a guest clinician and get new ideas.”

  They head to “Philly on Friday, April 7t and in the morning the singers will be working with doctor Paul Rardion who’s the director of choral activities at Temple University.”

     Then they are “headed to the Franklin Institute and the new Harry Potter exhibit.” The group is “going out to dinner and just doing some fun things as well” On Saturday they “are going to be in Princeton, NJ and exploring this really cool place actually north of Princeton called Ringing Rocks.” 

     Culotta described it “like a field of boulders or rocks and you actually bring a hammer with you and the rocks sound like bells when you hit them. A lot of different musical groups will go there and create kind of just songs on the fly, everybody likes to create different rhythms.”

     In the evening they’ll “be joining the Princeton Girl Choir, which is now under a conglomerate of choir organizations called the Westrick Music Academy or Western Academy, but they’ve been around for a very long time.” They will also do a joint concert with the Christian Girls Choir and will be joined by their conductor, Tom Shelton. “The group is “singing one of […] [Tom Shelton’s] pieces.”

     To wrap up the weekend, on Sunday they “are performing at a church for Palm Sunday service.” Despite not being a religious group, the singers will “often go and perform in various different churches.”

     North Harford sophomore Haley Bosley-Smith is a member of the Deer Creek Youth Chorale. She said she started, “ in elementary school, […] [she] was actually recommended into it by my music teacher.”

      The singer explained that “from the Deer Creek Youth Choir and the DCC […] [she’s] gone on tours to the University of Cincinnati.”Due to her musical skills she has “ gotten to do things with their college choir and also went on many trips to museums and amusement parks.”

     Bosley-Smith shared that this trip, they are “going to Princeton and Temple University”  At these colleges they group is going to “do private clinicians with directors.”