Bridle Path chorus wins song contest
Group to perform in Philadelphia next week
Friday morning was one the members of the Bridle Path Elementary School Chorus will never forget.
An explosion of screams, cheers and applause erupted from the group, as they heard their name announced as the winners of local radio station 101.1 More FM’s ninth annual Christmas Choir Competition.
“We found out early this morning that we had won, and it was just absolutely amazing. In my nine years of teaching, it was just the most incredible, and electric, I’ve ever seen the students. They were just going crazy,” said band director
Michael Klenk.
As contest winner, the Bridle Path group will perform with the Philly POPS during their show “A Philly POPS Christmas — Spectacular Sounds of the Season” at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia at 7 p.m. on Dec. 6. The group will also bring a $5,000 prize back to North Penn, and their winning song “This is My Wish” will be played on the radio station all month.
“They stayed after school, and worked on the song for about a month, and then they stayed after school about three weeks ago and recorded it. We did two takes, used one, and submitted it,” Klenk said.
“Then we found out the day before Thanksgiving that we were one of the nine semi-finalists, so you can imagine everyone was really excited, just about that alone,” he said.
The Bridle Path group
normally contains students in fourth, fifth and sixth grades, but the competition was set up for schools with students in kindergarten through eighth grades to compete in one division, with grades nine through 12 in the other.
“Even though we’re an elementary school, we knew going into it that we might be competing against middle
schools,” Klenk said.
“Our song was first played on Wednesday of this week, and then we won that day, and everyone was thrilled,” he said.
After hearing their song on air earlier this week, students and their families were able to vote for their favorites, and Bridle Path faced off on Thursday against the winners from
the Monday and Tuesday competitions, the Phoenixville Area Middle School Vocal Ensemble and the Poquessing Middle School Choir respectively.
Once again, Bridle Path came out on top, and their winning moment was captured by the district’s NPTV film crews as the choir listened at 7 a.m. Friday to their group being announced as the winners.
“What an exciting morning. What a way to start a Friday. It’s just fantastic, for Mr. Klenk, for the children — the whole Bridle Path community came together, and these kinds of things are unforgettable moments,” Bridle Path Principal Jeff Macosko said to NPTV.
“We had a tremendous amount of community support, throughout the whole North Penn area, which was incredible to see. We made the finals yesterday, and found out early this morning that we had won, and it was just absolutely amazing,” Klenk said.
On top of the Kimmel Center performance on Dec. 6, group members will also perform live at 101.1 More FM’s studios later in December, and the public will be able to hear the group during Bridle Path’s evening concert at 7 p.m. on Dec. 18 at the school, which is located at 200 Bridle Path Road in Montgomery Township. “It’s a volunteer chorus, so they sign up to be in it, and they rehearse before school. And these kids are asking me every day to come down during lunch, or ‘Can I stay in during recess?’” Klenk said.
“These kids are incredibly dedicated, they love music, and their hard work has really, really paid off, which is really neat for them to see,” he said.
And when the group takes the stage at the Kimmel Center, they’ll have a special guest: on piano will be Michael Klenk’s brother Matt, the Director of Choral Activities at North Penn High School, whose NPHS Chamber Singers won for their age group in the same contest last year.
“Going down and seeing how amazing that was for his students, kind of made me go ‘I’d love to enter my students into this next year,’” said Michael Klenk.
“One of my favorite moments of this whole thing was yesterday, when I called him. Normally, I play piano for the chorus, but at the Kimmel Center, I want to fully focus on directing the kids. So it was kind of neat to call him yesterday and say ‘Hey Matt, do you want to play piano for my choir at the Kimmel Center?’ To be on stage with each other will be really neat.”
“These kids are incredibly dedicated, they love music, and their hard work has really, really paid off, which is really neat for them to see.” — Director Michael Klenk