At 16 years old, high school junior Meredith Hilfiker has been singing with the Columbus Girlchoir for almost half of her life. For her, singing with the group is all about the music, especially the Christmas music.
“My favorite song this year is probably ‘Adeste Fideles,’” Hilfiker said. “The music in it — like the instruments in it — just hits me in a way I can’t explain. The words and the music all come together so beautifully.”
Hilfiker, along with 20 other girls in the choir, are preparing for their annual Christmas concert this upcoming at 3 p.m. Sunday in the Artz Fellowship Hall of the Fletcher-Jones Building at First Methodist Church. The concert is free and open to the public.
Columbus Girlchoir Board President Kathleen Wilkins joined the board in the past year. She said the concert is designed to be “uplifting,” as it contains “holiday music of the finest quality.”
“It’s going to be a beautiful concert featuring two of the choirs,” Wilkins said. “One is the younger choir and one is the senior choir. Just beautiful, traditional Christmas songs performed in such an excellent way. The music is thrilling.”
Founder and Artistic Director Cherry Dunn said the concert will include Christmas carols that are not typically performed in other venues, including “Adestes Fideles,” “Twas in the Moon of Wintertime,” “What Songs Were Sung” and more. The performance will also include popular songs “The First Noel” and “Up on the Housetop.”
Dunn said Tina Morgan, junior choir director and Ellen Hawkins, accompanist, will also be participating in the upcoming concert.
In 2004, Dunn started the Columbus Girlchoir, which has now been performing for almost 20 years. Wilkins said some members of the choir have even grown up and become board members of the Girlchoir.
“I started it after hearing the Mississippi Girlchoir probably 25 years ago,” Dunn said. “I was just entranced with the sound of girls singing together. And with the encouragement of the then pastor of First Methodist Church, Sam Morris — and he was instrumental in starting the Mississippi Girlchoir, which went for 30 years, but it dissolved this year for lack of singers — he encouraged me to start it.”
Until the COVID-19 pandemic, Dunn said, the group also performed at churches and nursing homes and included up to 70 members at one time. But since the pandemic, she said, it has been hard to rebuild.
However, Dunn said she hopes to regrow the group, as it offers girls the opportunity to sing with others that are unlike them, as the group includes girls who go to public school, private school or homeschool. There are also other benefits to singing in the choir, she said.
“There are just things that music does, particularly singing in a choir, does for the developing brain that nothing else does,” Dunn said. “Music is really good for young people, it helps them focus, it gives them discipline, it gives them a sense of camaraderie when singing with people.”
Hilfiker said she hopes the Christmas concert will act as an opportunity to encourage more girls to join the choir.
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