OC choir gives more students opportunity to sing

Photo by Abby Bellow

A new collegiate choir hopes to bring both students and faculty from Oklahoma Christian University together to sing.

The new choir is for any student or faculty member who just wants to sing, but does not have the time for the full dedication the official chorale choir requires. The collegiate choir has 24 students and seven staff members this semester. Currently it is comprised of only women.

Professor of Music Kyle Pullen started the collegiate choir and is the director of it.

“I wanted to have a choir for singers who didn’t make chorale,” Pullen said. “I didn’t want them to be able to not sing in choir. I wanted them to have some basic training and maybe make the chorale later.”

The collegiate choir differs from the chorale because the chorale has a mix of men and women and has more members. The chorale has more practice times, whereas the collegiate practices twice a week. The two choirs also differ in the types of music and the age of the member, since the collegiate choir has faculty members.

The collegiate choir hopes to raise attention for the music department.

“I think when there is more interest then it helps to advertise the department. Because more people know about it, more people are involved,” Pullen said. “I think there are people who are singing now in the choir that sounded good and they didn’t really know they could sound that good and that’s encouraging. They may realize they had more talent then they thought they had. It’s really inspiring.”

Pullen advertised the collegiate choir through the music department and started to hold auditions last spring. The word spread and auditions were also held during Earn Your Wings before the school year started.

“It grew very quickly,” Pullen said.

The collegiate choir not only drew the attention of music majors, but also singers from a variety of majors around campus.

“I would probably say we have more people in choir who aren’t music majors,” Pullen said. “Then we have just about every major that the school offers represented: business majors, engineering majors, computer science, nursing, English and history. Just all kinds of majors are represented.”

First year student Kayla Sheldon is in the collegiate choir this year and has enjoyed her time in it so far.

“It’s really fun, I love it,” Sheldon said.

Sheldon auditioned for the choir when the scholarships auditions were being held for the music department.

“I love being a part of the choir because it’s so much fun,” Sheldon said. “I love all of the girls and I love Dr. Pullen, he’s amazing. And it just feels really great to be in that choir.”

Junior Alyscia Morante is also a student in the collegiate choir.

“It’s not the student’s main focus to practice singing all the time, it’s something to do for fun,” Morante said in regard to the collegiate choir.

This is also Morante’s first year in the choir. She auditioned last semester. She said that she did not have time to be in chorale, but instead joined the collegiate choir.

“It’s something to do in my spare time,” Morante said.

Morante has had fun during her time in the collegiate choir and has noticed how the choir has improved.

“It’s been fun,” Morante said. “We’ve really progressed in the few weeks that we’ve been here. Like we started out and we’re getting more courageous, we’re getting a fuller tone. It’s just been a lot of fun to see the progression of all of these women and it’s been fun getting to know a lot of different people. It’s just something nice to do during the middle of the day and stop worrying about, like hard classes and just go sing.”

The collegiate choir will have performances during the same time as the chorale, Oct. 5 and at Cocoa and Carols this semester.