BY SYDNEY HOOVER
Community members of all ages, from middle schoolers to senior citizens, gathered in the Eudora High School choir room Tuesday evening to rehearse with the the city’s new community choir.
With around 25 people in attendance, the Eudora Community Choir saw its largest crowd at rehearsal Tuesday. Mayor Tim Reazin and several other newcomer men added to the bass, and elementary music teacher Rebecca Killen helped lead the altos to balance the sound as the choir practiced song selections such as “Kansas City Kitty” and “Ashokan Farewell.”
“I want this community to just do community things, and this is such a great opportunity,” said Ruth Hughs, who sings alto for the choir. “I love it because someone from the community came up with this idea, put all the resources together.”
Though the community choir held its first meeting in December and began rehearsals in January, the idea for the group started last summer. Jan Tedrow said she wanted to start the choir and asked Eudora High School choir teacher Allison Enneking to help launch and direct it.
Tedrow said she has sung in church choirs in the past and since moving to Eudora a few years ago, she wanted to create the choir as another way to get involved with the community.
“I just always really enjoyed the experience. Not just what music does for you but the friendships and all of that,” Tedrow said.
Enneking, Tedrow and others interested in joining the choir met in December to sing Christmas carols and discuss types of music they would like to sing. Enneking said selecting music for a choir she didn’t know yet has been the biggest challenge so far.
From there, Enneking encouraged several of her students to participate in the choir, and Tedrow used Facebook and other community groups she is involved in to spread the word.
“I’ve been wanting to be in a choir again forever,” said Nancy Dejmal, a friend of Tedrow’s who comes from Lawrence to participate in the choir. “The thing I think I’ve liked that I wasn’t sure I’d like is just the choice of music. I didn’t know if she’d be able to pick music everybody liked and the first day even the high school kids said they liked it.”
The choir will perform for the community for the first time at the Music in Our Schools choir concert on March 9 at Eudora High School. The concert will include choirs from the elementary, middle and high schools.
At the end of the concert, all of the choir students and the community choir will come together to perform the song “Music Changes the World” as one large group.
“We thought that this would be just kind of a good launching space for the community choir,” Enneking said. “We’ll have a big audience so any parents or family members or general community members who hear us and think ‘Oh, I could do that,’ they can see what we’ve been working on and decide to come be a part of it.”
The choir rehearses from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. every Tuesday in the Eudora High School choir room and all are welcome to attend.
Reach reporter Sydney Hoover at eudoratimes@gmail.com.
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