By Cindy Peterson
Two Clermont Choruses Place Among Top Five in Orlando Contest
Two choruses from Clermont placed among the top five in Harmony, Inc.’s Area 6 Convention and Contests that took place in Orlando in April. Local groups Sisters of Sound and Unaccompanied Minors competed against more than 200 singers from Florida, Georgia, and Tennessee who participated in the regional contest.
Sisters of Sound earned a second-place finish, performing “Little Patch of Heaven” and a stirring rendition of “When She Loved Me” from the Disney film Toy Story 2. Unaccompanied Minors, Clermont’s youth chorus, placed fourth in the Area with their fun and energetic performances of “Sunny Side of the Street” and “Blue Skies.” Both choruses have qualified to compete at the Harmony, Inc. International Convention and Contests which will be held in Louisville, KY in November.
Sisters of Sound, founded in 2008 and directed by Tiana Sandh, has consistently placed at the top of the Area 6 rankings and saw a leap in their scores this year that put them only 5 points away from the first-place chorus.
“We were so ready for this contest,” chorus president Shannon Shelton-Muller says, “These ladies work very hard leading up to contest and when we hit the stage this year we all felt like we were putting something we were proud of in front of the judges and audience.”
Youth chorus Unaccompanied Minors, which is open to young women between the ages of 7 and 25, also brought home the Audience Choice Award as well as the Dazzle Award, given to the chorus with the greatest increase in performance scores year over year. Olivia Fontana, a 15-year-old singer who has been with the group since she was 8, says ”Competing with UM is something I look forward to every spring. The Harmony organization is so warm and welcoming to us, and we always learn so much from the people who have been singing this style of music for longer than we have been alive!”
In addition to the chorus contest, Area 6 also hosted a quartet contest. Three qualifying quartets hail from Clermont. Serenade, featuring singers Diana Anderson (Bass), Shannon Shelton-Muller (Lead), Katie Rosenblad (Baritone) and Cindy Hunt (Tenor), In A Chord, Alex Riehl (Bass), Tiana Sandh (Lead), Daphne Gunasekera (Baritone), and Kristin Gunaskera (Tenor), and Youth Quartet Daphodyls Olivia Fontana (Bass), Hanan Geda (Lead), Daphne Gunasekera (Baritone), and Emily McDonald (Tenor), all secured spots in Harmony, Inc.’s International Quartet Contest.
Harmony, Inc., an organization that focuses on empowering women through singing, education and friendship, just celebrated its 65th anniversary. Participants in Harmony contests are adjudicated by a panel of trained judges in categories that encompass musical selection and interpretation, quality of singing, and performance.
Sisters of Sound, which is open to singers of all ages and does not require an audition, rehearses Tuesday nights from 6:30-8:30. Unaccompanied Minors has a simple on-line audition process on their website and rehearses one Saturday a month. Both groups meet at Aurelia Cole Academy in Clermont.
Together the groups will be presenting an a cappella concert this August, more information will be available online as the show approaches. For more information see www.sistersofsound.org and www.unaccompaniedminors.org
Originally from the small town of Berryville, Arkansas, Cindy has become a multimedia specialist in journalism, photography, videography, and video editing. She has a B.S. in Communications from the University of Central Arkansas and produces Style Magazine's Sports Hub Podcast and the Healthy Living Podcast. She also produces for Beacon College’s Telly Award-winning PBS show, “A World of Difference.” When she isn’t working, Cindy loves traveling the National Parks with her husband , Ryan, and son, David, photographing wildlife.
