Five members from the chorus department currently are participating in the Stetson Choral Festival at the university located in Deland. The festival opens with a two-day rehearsal led by Stetson choral directors to prepare students from various high schools for a performance on Saturday.

The work put into the festival is intense, according to Junior Jadasia Norris.

“We have two days of practice before the concert,” Norris said. “We have three hour-long practices twice a day, and a 30-minute music class each day in between the two rehearsals. On Friday, the choirs at Stetson put on a concert for us, which is my favorite part of the event. This is is my second year participating.”

The event was originally scheduled for Oct. 7-8,  2016.

“The festival got rescheduled because of the impending hurricane,” chorus teacher Amy Davis said. “It was rescheduled to next weekend, but since that weekend is Brevard’s All County Festival, it was moved again to this weekend. It would have affected too many schools if they had made it next weekend. This is our second year doing this. We liked it so much, we decided to do it again. If we have fun again, we’ll try to make it an annual thing. Hopefully there will be no more hurricanes.”

Freshman Jimmy Wood will be attending the festival for the first time.

“Last year I wanted to go, but I wasn’t allowed to because I was not a high-school student,” Wood said. “I’m most excited about getting to work with different conductors and gaining more knowledge about music and performing in large ensembles.”

By Hannah Kent