{"id":47813,"date":"2025-04-10T21:57:41","date_gmt":"2025-04-11T01:57:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.knightcrier.org\/?p=47813"},"modified":"2025-04-11T08:47:20","modified_gmt":"2025-04-11T12:47:20","slug":"chamber-singers-set-to-make-a-noteworthy-pmea-performance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.knightcrier.org\/top-stories\/2025\/04\/10\/chamber-singers-set-to-make-a-noteworthy-pmea-performance\/","title":{"rendered":"Chamber Singers set to make a &#8220;note&#8221;worthy PMEA performance"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>North Penn High School offers a vast variety of after-school activities to be a part of. Some choose to play football, or crochet, and some spend their Monday and Wednesday afternoons in F051 with North Penn Chorus Director Mr. Matthew Klenk.<\/p>\n<p>The selected 45 students in North Penn Chamber Singers, directed by Mr. Klenk, have been chosen to perform tomorrow, Friday, April 10th, at Kalahari for PMEA.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPMEA stands for Pennsylvania Music Educators Association. That is the organization of, as it says, music educators in the state of Pennsylvania, so that all public school, private school, and collegiate teachers can be members of PMEA,\u201d Klenk said.<\/p>\n<p>This amazing organization hosts a non-competition event every year that promotes camaraderie, and demonstrates the beauty of music education in the state of Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey hold a large annual conference every year in the spring. This is where two things happen. One, is it\u2019s a professional conference, which is the part we\u2019re performing in. Two, it\u2019s where students who individually are able to make All-State chorus, band, orchestra, or jazz happen there as well. The conference culminates with those All-State performances, but the first couple days of the event features different performance groups around the state,\u201d Klenk described.<\/p>\n<p>Hours and hours of hard work and dedication have gone in to not only allow them to be selected for this event but also to prepare them for their performance.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cChamber Singers is our mixed ensemble selected by audition, mixed meaning soprano, alto, tenor, and bass. It\u2019s definitely our most active group, they rehearse and perform the most, and they pretty much sing everything acapella. There are usually around 45 students in the group. This year they are taking on a number of challenges, and this year&#8217;s group is awesome. I say that because in all of my time here I have never put this much work into the group. They\u2019ve shown themselves [to be] fully capable of it,\u201d Klenk explained.<\/p>\n<aside>\n    <div class='pullquote sno-pullquote-6a6071636ca07 sno-animate pullquote-shadow'>\n                <div class=\"quotebody\">\n                        <div class='largequote'>&ldquo;<\/div>\n                                    <p class='pullquotetext'>Chamber Singers is our mixed ensemble selected by audition, mixed meaning soprano, alto, tenor, and bass. It\u2019s definitely our most active group, they rehearse and perform the most, and they pretty much sing everything acapella.<\/p>\n                            <p class='quotespeaker'>&mdash; Matthew Klenk, North Penn Chorus Director<\/p>\n                        <div class=\"clear\"><\/div>\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<style>\n.sno-pullquote-6a6071636ca07 {\n    display: flex;\n    float: left;\n    margin: 30px 30px 30px 0;\n    width: 50%;\n    border-color: #67c0fc;\n    border-top-width: 5px;\n    border-right-width: 5px;\n    border-bottom-width: 5px;\n    border-left-width: 5px;\n    background-color: #0a1c42;\n}\n.sno-pullquote-6a6071636ca07 p.pullquotetext,\n.sno-pullquote-6a6071636ca07 p.quotespeaker {\n    color: #ffffff !important;\n}\n.sno-pullquote-6a6071636ca07 .pullquotepic {\n    width: 33%;\n    margin-left: 25px;\n}\n.sno-story-body .sno-pullquote-6a6071636ca07 p.pullquotetext {\n    font-size: 22px;\n    line-height: 1.4em;\n}\n.sno-pullquote-6a6071636ca07 .quotebar {\n    background: #0a1c42;\n    flex: 0 0 90px;\n    margin-top: -15px;\n    margin-left: -15px;\n    padding-left: 15px;\n    padding-top: 15px;\n    margin-right: 15px;\n}\n.sno-pullquote-6a6071636ca07 .largequote {\n\tcolor: #67c0fc;\n}\n.sno-pullquote-6a6071636ca07 .quotebody {\n    width: unset;\n}\n<\/style>\n\n<p>A performance like this entails six specially picked out songs for a set that they will display tomorrow morning.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe took a couple pieces that we did earlier in the year that we thought really sounded tremendous. My favorite piece that we\u2019re doing is from the American South and it\u2019s called Idumea and it features a fiddle. We\u2019re doing six total songs in our set which we start off with an opening fanfare. The biggest challenge is a piece called Sanctus because it\u2019s full eight part acapella harmony the entire time and it\u2019s very slow but it is gorgeous,\u201d Klenk said.<\/p>\n<p>Naturally with a big and important conference like this, there\u2019s going to be some challenges.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe biggest thing is how we\u2019re going to arrange because we won\u2019t get to be in the room we perform in till a half-hour before. So we\u2019re preparing for what the acoustics will be like. Additionally, getting everyone in uniforms and memorizing is key for a performance like this,\u201d Klenk stated.<\/p>\n<p>But at the end of the day, there\u2019s light at the end of the tunnel because Chamber Singers get to finish off their time at PMEA with a splash at the Kalahari waterpark.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe fun part about this is because it\u2019s at Kalahari, we\u2019re going to be able to spend the rest of the day at the waterpark,\u201d Klenk explained. \u201cWe have this real high stress performance and then we\u2019re able to celebrate collectively with waterslides and food.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Chamber Singers being chosen for an event like this truly demonstrates how special our music department is here at North Penn.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m so proud that Chambers is attending PMEA this year. These types of performances reflect the quality of the overall program. Our selection this year was based on recordings from last year, which allows us to show consistency from year to year. It\u2019s such a wonderful opportunity to show music educators around the state what makes North Penn music so special,\u201d Klenk said.<\/p>\n<p>However, not only do they have this honor tomorrow, they also have another set for Sunday. It\u2019s a jammed packed weekend for North Penn Chamber Singers, and they are ready for the challenge.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat makes this year\u2019s group stand out is that while we\u2019re preparing for Friday, they\u2019re simultaneously also doing a huge performance on Sunday that is completely separate. On Sunday, we\u2019re performing here in Lansdale for the entire Brahms Requiem, which is about an hour long and entirely in German. It\u2019s one of the most important works in music history. So for us to have the opportunity to perform it with a full professional orchestra is a phenomenal opportunity, but it\u2019s been a ton of work because there&#8217;s so much music to learn. So the whole year we\u2019ve been learning that in addition to the entire repertoire that we\u2019re going to perform at PMEA,\u201d Klenk stated.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>North Penn High School offers a vast variety of after-school activities to be a part of. Some choose to play football, or crochet, and some spend their Monday and Wednesday afternoons in F051 with North Penn Chorus Director Mr. Matthew Klenk. The selected 45 students in North Penn Chamber Singers, directed by Mr. Klenk, have&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":47815,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54,11],"tags":[],"staff_name":[1432],"class_list":["post-47813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-top-stories","staff_name-cate-trapani"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.knightcrier.org\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.knightcrier.org\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.knightcrier.org\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.knightcrier.org\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.knightcrier.org\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47813"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.knightcrier.org\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47813\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47822,"href":"https:\/\/www.knightcrier.org\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47813\/revisions\/47822"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.knightcrier.org\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.knightcrier.org\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.knightcrier.org\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.knightcrier.org\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47813"},{"taxonomy":"staff_name","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.knightcrier.org\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/staff_name?post=47813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}