The Texas Youth Chorale, an honors choir of students from the Dallas Metroplex, will be in Allen County May 30 for a pair of free performances.
The students in grades 6-12, under the direction of Humboldt native Ann Sharp Smith, will be at St. Peter’s Lutheran Church in Humboldt at noon, before venturing to Iola for a 7 p.m. show at the Bowlus Fine Arts Center.
The concerts are part of TYC’s “We Sing For You! Small Town USA!” summer concert tour, which takes the choir to other venues in Oklahoma and Kansas.
The midwest tour is the first in this part of the country for the choir, which Smith founded about 10 years ago as a means to entice youngsters to embrace the world of music. Through the years, the group has performed in Dublin, Ireland and the iconic Sydney Opera House in Australia.
“A lot of these kids are multicultural, but they’ve only seen the Dallas area,” Smith told the Register. “It’s fun for me to take kids, whether it’s to Europe or domestically, to the country, where they can make these connections.”
There will be some play involved in their work visit to Humboldt and Iola. The children will tour Strickler’s Dairy in Iola and Cole Herder’s farm in Humboldt, where they’ll learn how to drive a tractor.
A dip in the Humboldt Municipal Pool also is on the itinerary, before the day ends with a visit to Craig Sharp’s farm — Smith’s brother — for a meal.
SMITH graduated from Humboldt High School in 1972, keen on pursuing a career in music.
“My mother said I sang before I talked,” Smith joked. “That’s where it started, the good Lord giving me that gift.”
Smith was in the high school band, where she excelled enough to earn a band scholarship to Kansas State University
It was at K-State that Smith changed her focus from band to choir.
After college, Smith moved to Texas, where she wound up in Denton, about 30 miles north of the Dallas Metroplex, where she taught high school choir.
That, in turn, led to the Texas Youth Chorale, which Smith formed in 2012 to allow students from neighboring schools to take part.
Her vision was audacious, she admitted.
“You have to realize, people like me don’t necessarily think things through right away,” she said. “I came up with this idea, this awesome idea. How to make it happen wasn’t even a part of my thought process. It was kind of like my dad. He was always very intuitive. He could articulate the end, but not necessarily the journey.”
