After a challenging day of teaching, Brittany Powell goes to choir practice and lets it all out.
She was a music education major in college and uses songs to stimulate her preschoolers in a Fort Lauderdale Head Start program. But to Powell, 34, there’s nothing like singing with like-minded adults who find joy in music’s diversity, from classics and jazz to spirituals and patriotic American songs.
“When I moved here, I knew I wanted to go back into a choir,” said Powell, who was in high school choruses and relocated to Fort Lauderdale from New Jersey in 2019. “Music makes a huge impact on your emotions. It keeps me motivated.”
Powell is a soprano with Nova Singers, Nova Southeastern University’s 49-year-old community chorus. About 75 members of the group will perform in the coming week at three churches in Broward County before taking a summer break and then inviting fellow music lovers to audition in August.
The concert series — called “How Can We Keep From Singing!” — will feature songs from jazz to spirituals to movie favorites, under the direction of Chuck Stanley and accompanied by pianist Anthony Ciotti and other instrumentalists.
The chorus was founded in 1976 by Peggy Joyce Barber, the choral director at Stranahan High School in Fort Lauderdale. She started the ensemble with her former students and grew the program to include community members, partnering with what was then called Nova University to create the Nova University Community Singers, now called Nova Singers.
The ensemble, with more than 100 members, is made up of local residents with an assortment of day jobs, including doctors, dentists, teachers and church workers, and ranging in age from 20 to 90. They perform three series a year, with rehearsals once a week from September through May. Even though they’re not a religious group, most of their concerts are at churches, which members say have the best acoustics and often allow them to perform for free.
John List, 74, who will take over as president in July, is a real estate agent who has been a member for all 49 years of the group’s existence.
He was deeply moved by the group’s outreach after his wife, Eileen, died six years ago: She loved Christmas and threw lavish parties each year. In consultation with List’s family, the singers performed Christmas songs at her funeral, even though it was in July. The congregation exited singing “Joy to the World.”
“They are my music family,” he said. “I hope when I go, they sing for me.”
Besides a love of singing, there’s another skill that’s encouraged: the ability to read music. This skill is important so participants can learn songs quickly and know when to come into a piece, said Teresa Mears, a former Miami Herald editor who joined the singers in 2016.
Although it used to be a requirement, the singers’ website now says: “While the ability to perfectly sight-read is not a requirement, potential singers must demonstrate an awareness of musical notation and a sensitivity to blending their voice with others.”
“The idea is for people who are not professional musicians to be able to perform it in a few months,” Mears said.
About two-thirds of the members are women, Mears said. Any tenors out there? Mears said the group is searching for men with high voices, a hard-to-find subset cherished for their expressive range.
Get your voices ready: The next auditions will be at 6:30 p.m. Aug. 26 at Christ Lutheran Church, 1955 E. Oakland Park Blvd., Fort Lauderdale.
IF YOU GO
WHAT: Nova Singers present “How Can We Keep From Singing!”
WHEN/WHERE:
- 8 p.m. Friday, May 16, Taft Street Baptist Church, 7241 Taft St., Pembroke Pines
- 4 p.m. Sunday, May 18, United Church of Christ, 2501 NE 30th St., Fort Lauderdale
- 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, May 20, St. Paul Lutheran Church, 580 Indian Trace, Weston
COST: $20 in advance; $25 at the door; free for children age 12 and younger and students of any age with school ID
INFORMATION: nova.edu/novasingers
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