- August 5, 2026
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Singing on stage at Carnegie Hall in New York City always was on Nicole Kimmel’s bucket list.
She always seemed to narrowly miss her high school or college choir trips to the famed music hall.
But last year, Kimmel finally was able to take then storied stage — just not as a student.
After years of missing out on opportunities to sing at Carnegie Hall throughout her educational career, Kimmel sang her heart out and made a dream come true with the Winter Garden Community Choir, a local group of singers from around the Central Florida area under the direction of Dr. Jeffrey Redding, who was Kimmel’s choir director at West Orange High School before she graduated in 2017.
She still was able to explore New York City, spend time with friends in the choir and perform a large choir piece that was exciting for her to learn in a beautiful space that was breathtaking and satisfying.
That’s the power of the Winter Garden Community Choir.
No matter a person’s age or background, the choir gives people a chance to make their dreams come true and unite a community of music lovers to give back to the community at large.
The Winter Garden Community Choir will come together once again for its first rehearsal Monday, Aug. 17, at West Orange High School, the school where it all began 20 years ago.
In 2007, Bert and Barbara Roper, who were working on refurbishing the Garden Theatre in downtown Winter Garden, approached Redding, who was the choir director at West Orange High School at the time, about creating a community choir. With assistance from city leaders, Redding brought together 30 singers with the first performance being at the Garden Theatre.
Since then, Redding said the choir has taken off running, growing in size to more than 200 singers who come from far and wide to participate in the choir. Some even virtually join rehearsals from out of state who have connections to Winter Garden and fly to the Orlando area to perform with the choir.
Choir membership has increased to the point Redding created the Orlando Choral Society, an umbrella organization that includes Winter Garden Community Choir and other ensembles.
Now 20 years later, Redding will see his choir come together once again for the first rehearsal of the season in the same room the artistic director once taught in at West Orange High starting in 1996. He earned a Grammy for teaching while at West Orange.
“West Orange High School has still been so dear to me and will always have a special place in my heart, because that’s where I found myself, having that wonderful community of people to serve and learning how we can serve our community,” Redding said. “I learned how to be a servant-leader while teaching high school. ”
The choir still will sing the same song Redding had the original Winter Garden Community Choir sing in its inaugural year, “Unity” — a song about bringing people of all different backgrounds together to show people are stronger together.
Redding said it’s humbling to see how far the choir has come, and he has realized over the years it’s not about him but rather about “what’s been given to you to give away.” He said there always will be doubters, but he knows the uniqueness of the Winter Garden Community Choir and what it offers to those in it and those it serves.
“You just open your arms and you say this is a place where you belong if you so choose, and if you don’t, that’s fine,” he said. “I know what we’re about here, and so to realize this and to understand that Winter Garden was a very different place when I came here 20 years ago and to see and realize how far we’ve come in accepting each other for who we are through the power of music, wow. I can be a small part of something that’s so beautiful. I am absolutely blown away by it.”
Every time the choir gathers for rehearsal, Redding said it can be healing and life-changing. It’s about a group of people coming together to create not only beautiful music but also a community.
“You’re doing more than just singing,” he said. “You’re talking to people. You’re talking to people who are not like you. You’re talking to people who are like you, so we get to break the bounds of stereotypes that have dogged us for centuries, and you get to sing music of all styles.”
As a non-audition choir, people of all ages, backgrounds and experiences are welcome to join. There are college students, retirees, parents and their children, husbands and wives, music teachers, people who simply have a passion for music and everyone in-between.
“Any time you get in an environment that people really appreciate and love the art form, it’s such a nurturing environment to be in,” said Jim Cunningham, who has been a member of the choir for the past five years. “It’s a lot of fun, and it’s a lot of growth. Having those different generations interact is fantastic. There’s so many different perspectives and approaches to the art form that I love it.”
The unifying power of music is a learning experience for singers, such as Kimmel, who has been with the choir since 2021.
“It’s really nice to be able to sit next to someone who just has so much wisdom and stories and experiences to share, and then on your other side, there can be someone who’s a freshman in college, and everything is new for them,” she said. “It just adds a lot of unity and more color to the choir.”
For Redding, it’s the simple smile on his singers’ faces as they rock or throw their hands up enthralled in the music. It was the grandmother crying on stage at Carnegie Hall in New York because she never imagined she actually would be there performing. It’s the person sitting in a chair so captivated by the music that he or she can’t help but rock back and forth while smiling and singing along.
“It touches my heart when a person says to me, ‘I never thought I was good enough, but here I am now,’” he said.
Every year, he said there are members who are surprised to see how far they have come musically, finding their voice whether it’s been 10 years since they sang or they’re singing in front of a group for the first time. The novice singer learns how to match pitch. They relish the process before savoring the final performance after numerous rehearsals.
Cunningham continues to return after five years because he’s always learning each year. It’s the opportunity to become a little bit better under Redding’s guidance and leadership as he uses his “tremendous insights into the art form” to elevate the choir, Cunningham said. Even if he’s tired after a long day and might not want to go to rehearsal, he said he attends because he always comes back energized and appreciative of the experience.
A significant reason members said they return year after year is Redding. His charisma, passion and dedication to the choir, the community and giving back is inspirational.
Chad McClellan, a founding member of the choir, has known Redding since he was a freshman at West Orange High in 1997, and Redding was his choir director. When Redding was starting the choir, he called McClellan to ask him to help recruit members. McClellan’s 30 years with Redding inspired him to start a community choir in Clermont, and he’s used the techniques he’s learned from his director with his own choir.
“My passion for singing and music have come from working with Dr. Redding over the past three decades,” he said. “Dr. Redding has a really good way of kind of doing a deep dive into the text and what it means and how it’s very significant to what you’re singing and the way it’s written. There’s moments of epiphanies that happen with the music where it kind of clicks in everybody’s head and the sound changes because your viewpoint on the piece changes. Those are always really big moments.”
Whether the choir members are new to singing or have been singing all their lives, the Winter Garden Community Choir provides new experiences for all involved.
The bodies of work Redding cultivates for each concert is something every member looks forward to learning, especially for annual performances such as the Martin Luther King Jr. concert at Steinmetz Hall in the Dr. Phillips Performing Arts Center.
Each year, the performance captivates not only the audience but also the choir, and it has become a favorite performance of many in the choir.
Cunningham said there aren’t words to describe the emotion and exhilaration a person has in witnessing the extraordinary performances during the MLK concert.
“You really just have to be there,” he said.
Over the years, the group has traveled to Ireland, Italy and New York. McClellan said being a part of the ensemble and traveling with the group has been life-changing.
“We can stay (in Central Florida), and that’s great because we want to be in our community, seeing our community, but experiences different places, singing at different venues, experiencing different cultures and performing for folks from not only different states but also different countries and bringing all those people together is an incredible experience,” he said.
In the next 20 years, Redding wants to see the choir continue to grow but continue its same standard of high-level, non-audition singing with a tradition of giving back to the community. He wants the group to continue to travel, and the choir already has plans to travel July 3-9, 2027, to Paris.
“I want this choir to be one of the anchors that can bring our cities together through song,” he said. “I want this group to be a representation of a beloved community.”
