The Festival Singers of Florida to perform in Winter Park

Sixty voices flow together, swelling with power one second and expressing vulnerable beauty the next.

The songs aren’t common. They sing in different languages, their songs ranging from fast and forceful to sweet and light. Their voices blend perfectly together even though they practice as a group only a few times a year.

The Festival Singers of Florida (FSOF) are a special group of volunteer choral singers — most of them chorus teachers. They live all over Florida, some traveling hundreds of miles to perform in their concerts. This Saturday, Oct. 6, they’ll all converge for a performance at the Winter Park Presbyterian Church.

The Festival Singers are an exclusive group that has auditions each year, with only the best representatives of choral singing making the cut. They hope to share their art with the Central Florida community and give them an opportunity to hear music at a level they couldn’t hear anywhere else.

“We strive to touch lives,” said Holly Cook, president of the group and an Oviedo resident.

Cook, who was part of the FSOF’s founding in 2008, said the group was born out of a need for a professional-level singing outlet that many of her friends and fellow singers were missing after college. While she gets to sing and teach every day as Timber Creek High School’s choral director, it just didn’t allow for the expression through music she was used to. It’s an intellectual challenge for the singers, who Cook said perform “vocal acrobatics” during shows when they sing songs with very complex rhythms and harmonies.

“I had a void that I needed to fill,” she said.

Matthew Begale, choral director at Glenridge Middle School, echoed her sentiments.

“I get to perform music I couldn’t perform anywhere else,” he said.

And because they’re all exceptional singers and readers of music, the FSOF can accomplish amazing musical feats after spending a weekend rehearsing a bit before the concert and one long practice the day before. Kevin Fenton, the singers’ artistic director, said while most choirs spend about 150 minutes rehearsing for every minute of a concert, the Festival Singers spend just 10 minutes. Cook said over the years they have gotten to know each other’s style and tone, and the blending of voices happens almost instantly.

And those amazing moments of harmony are what the singers live for.

“It’s a great opportunity to pour yourself out,” said Andrew Minear, a Winter Park singer and choral director at Dr. Phillips High School. “It’s a really great emotional and creative outlet. It’s hard to put into words the goose bumps you get when the music is just so beautiful or when you lock in that chord and it resonates to your core — it’s one of my favorite things in life.”

“It’s a continuous reminder of why I love music so much,” Begale said. “It feeds my soul.”

There are times during rehearsal when Fenton has seen his singers completely wrapped up in a song, each one with tears in their eyes because they were overcome by their own personal emotional reaction. They have a true passion for music, he said.

The Festival Singers of Florida will be performing at the Winter Park Presbyterian Church on Oct. 6 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $10 and can be purchased at the door and online. Visit www.fsof.org for more information.

It also gives the community the opportunity to connect with music they’ve never heard before or hear it in an environment that they wouldn’t expect. Choral music isn’t just for a classroom or a church, Fenton said. As artists, they hope the audience really feels something when they attend a show.

“I hope that it connects with them on a real human and emotional level that calls upon their own life experiences and gives those goose bump moments that only really beautiful music can give,” Minear said. “Music is something that brings people together from all walks of life … and I think that’s powerful stuff.”

They want that for their students, too. Many of the FSOF members invite their school choirs to the concerts. The students sometimes give mixed reviews about the music they perform, but Cook said it’s a great way to show them that a passion for singing doesn’t have to end after high school or college.

“We’re encouraging lifelong love,” Fenton said.