Burncoat Choir Does DC
Photos by Caroline Bridges
CHOIR
Worcester Telegram & Gazette
Sarah Gantz
Boston University Washington News Service
Jan. 17, 2009
WASHINGTON — In one gulp, Rachael Brown swallowed the mint she had popped in her mouth to stave off hunger just in time for the opening line of the Star Spangled Banner. Ms. Brown, 17, is a self-proclaimed “very loud soprano” for the Burncoat High School Select Choir, which gave an impromptu performance on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives Saturday morning.
“We do that now and then,” said Casey Evans, a 17-year-old tenor, who explained that the 23-member choir often bursts into song unexpectedly.
The group is in town for the Presidential Inaugural Heritage Music Festival, a competition for student ensembles scheduled to coincide with the inauguration of Barack Obama. They have been seeing the sights, including the nooks and crannies of the U.S. Capitol on a tour guided by Rep. James McGovern (D-Worcester).
Mr. McGovern and his 7-year-old daughter Molly led the group, a parade of swishing matching windbreaker jackets and camera flashes, through the Capitol’s ornate halls to the House chamber, where few visitors venture and even fewer sing.
“There’s not a lot of singing going on on the House floor,” said Mr. McGovern, who described their a cappella rendition of the national anthem as “absolutely beautiful.”
Seated in a cluster of House member’s chairs, the choir listened as Mr. McGovern explained the building’s history and gazed up at the bullet hole in the ceiling left by an attack by Puerto Rican nationalists who fired into the chamber from the gallery in 1954.
“It’s kind of like the cafeteria,” Mr. McGovern said of where the members sit in the chamber, explaining that, although there are no assigned seats, he and the other representatives migrate to the same general vicinity every session.
It was after filling the lavish staircases with their echoing “wow”s but before peeking into the chamber’s couch-filled cloakroom—“Where we hang out,” said the congressman—that David J. Twiss, the director, called for an E-flat and the choir began to sing the national anthem.
The group has spent the past five months, including four rehearsals when school was closed in December because of the ice storm, perfecting a three-song a cappella set they are to perform Sunday night.
Last April, they placed first in the chamber chorus division and second over-all at a similar competition in Williamsburg, Va.,, but awards are not the group’s priority, Mr. Twiss said. “Our goal is to do our personal best.”
“I don’t think they have any idea how important it was to have done that,” Mr. Twiss said of their House chamber performance. “But someday they will.”
Rose Murphy understood. The 17-year-old said she was so excited to get on the bus Friday morning when the group left Worcester that she woke up early and triple-checked that she had everything.
“It’s one of those things I’ll never forget,” said Ms. Murphy. “Every time I see C-SPAN I’ll think of it.”
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