Chamber Singers win national choral award
The 2019-20 ECU Chamber Singers won second place in The American Prize in Choral Performance. (Contributed photo taken pre-COVID-19)
The East Carolina University Chamber Singers won second place in The American Prize in Choral Performance, College/University division, 2019-20 competition.
Announced July 27, The American Prize provides cash awards, professional adjudication, and regional, national and international recognition for the best recorded performances by ensembles and individuals each year in the United States at the professional, college/university, church, community and secondary school levels.
Directed by James Franklin, the Chamber Singers are the select choral ensemble at ECU.
The ensemble is typically composed of 36-40 auditioned singers, most of whom are voice majors from within the ECU School of Music. The majority of the singers are undergraduate students working toward degrees in music education, performance, music therapy and/or composition.
“Receiving the award of second place in the college/university division of The American Prize is a wonderful honor for our students and the university,” Franklin said. “Members of the ECU Chamber Singers work incredibly hard in order to craft a musical experience that is both powerful and meaningful to the listener. It is incredibly rewarding when that body of work is acknowledged and appreciated by a panel of artists from around the country.”
The Chamber Singers have performed by invitation at regional and national conferences of the American Choral Directors Association, international choral competitions including the European Grand Prix for Choral Singing, and they tour across North Carolina annually.
The American Prize is the nation’s most comprehensive series of contests in the performing arts, designed to evaluate, recognize and reward the best performers, ensembles and composers in the country based on submitted recordings. The organization, founded in 2009, announces winners each year.