by CarolAnn North and Barbara A. Chaapel

The tour was the dream of Martin Tel, director of music, and Bob Sharman, Class of 1984 and director of alumni/ae relations. “We wanted to visit churches that had expressed an interest in hearing our regular Touring Choir but that the choir could not visit during the academic year,” said Bob. “And we wanted to travel to Pittsburgh to sing at the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA).”

The tour intentionally included four distinct and different congregations and communities: the urban congregation in Philadelphia; the small town First Presbyterian Church in Martinsburg, West Virginia, pastored by Rufus Burton, Class of 1998; the rural Rehobeth Presbyterian Church in Belle Vernon in western Pennsylvania, whose pastor Richard Klein is a 1980 PTS graduate; and finally, Shadyside Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh, a large suburban congregation whose pastor Craig Barnes, Class of 1981, is a PTS trustee.

After singing in Philadelphia on June 27, our bus pulled out of the campus driveway early Thursday morning, June 28, headed for Hershey, Pennsylvania, where a chocolate lunch prepared us for our arrival in Martinsburg.  The warm welcome by Rufus Burton and the sumptuous feast with our overnight hosts allowed us to linger following our well-received concert, where Albert Chung, Class of 2014, played gospel piano, and Chi Yi Chen sang in Taiwanese, her native language.  Before we left Martinsburg, we enjoyed a historic tour of the Shenandoah Valley area by a local pastor and historian and friend of Rufus’s.

On the way to Belle Vernon the next day, the choir stopped at the Flight 93 National Memorial, where Sally Christian, a local Princeton resident and Seminary friend who was singing with the choir, acknowledged the privilege and significance of singing “The Call” at this site.  Sally had learned of the tour after attending the Seminary’s conference on the King James Bible last spring and asked if she could join! 

Choir members forged a community of singers instantaneously! With hundreds of years of vocal training and graduates from more than five decades among the choir members, the experience, from the bus trip to visiting in homes of church members to the concerts themselves, was in the key of “F”: faith, fellowship and fun. Perhaps Laura Loving, Class of 1977, said it best: “This syncretistic collection of voices, stories, personalities, and experiences was fabulous.”

From plan to implementation, the tour was guided by the administrative skills of Melissa Haupt, Class of 2008, a Ph.D. candidate, and the choir manager. She coordinated everything from the rehearsal, to assigning robes to alums, to making sure everyone had the right music. Jan Ammon, Class of 1990 and minister of the chapel, also joined the tour, both as a singer and to help shape a spiritual context for the group. She offered prayer at each church, and was available to choir members throughout the week.

All thirty-one singers appreciated the wonderful leadership of our director, Martin Tel. In David Cassie’s (Class of 1963) words, “Martin provoked excellence with a velvet glove.” Barbara Chaapel, Class of 1973 and PTS’s director of communications/publications, and an alto in the choir, said that Martin “created a musical community, and he did it with joy, flexibility, humor, and competence.”

 “Especially in the small town settings, I saw people moved to joy, laughter, singing, and then tears as they experienced music that perhaps often doesn’t find its way to such communities,” said Bob Sharman. “Our concerts were always a mixture of performance and sing-along. It was also wonderful to share the delight of our alumni/ae as they joined the tour, reliving their experience of their years at the Seminary.”

The choir’s repertoire included spirituals, gospel songs, songs from the international church, the Seminary’s Bicentennial hymn “In a Deep Unbounded Darkness,” hymns from the new Presbyterian hymnal Glory to God, and “The Call,” sung every year at the Seminary’s graduation. At the 200^th General Assembly, the choir sang at the ecumenical worship service, and also led several musical sessions to introduce the new hymnal. A highlight for Jean Goodwin was singing “The Call” at the Princeton Seminary luncheon for the almost 300 graduates gathered.

Perhaps the most memorable moment of the tour came at the Rehobeth church, whose pastor Richard Klein, Class of 1980, cautioned the congregation about a storm that blew in during the concert. “Relax,” he said. “The storm is outside; inside we shall have more of this choir’s music.” Just as he finished his words, Mother Nature joined in with vigorous lightning and thunder as the choir sang “My Lord, he calls me by the thunder in “Steal Away.”

A treat for all listeners were the gospel duets between William Heard, Class of 2004, and CarolAnn North, Class of 2000. Both had sung in the Seminary choirs while they were students, but met for the first time on this Bicentennial Tour. Together they led the choir and congregations in encouraging people to “live so God can use you, and let your little light shine.” For CarolAnn, the tour was an answer to prayer. “I cried out one night to the Lord, ‘Can I ever sing again?’ Amazingly, within twenty-four hours, I received the email from a PTS friend telling me of this reunion tour. The PTS Bicentennial Choir embodied Psalm 37:4 for me: ‘Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.’”

View photos of the tour.