Meet TCC's Artistic Director, Patty Thel
“What I've done over the past twenty five years has brought me to this place,” says Patricia Thel. This is something I really want to do.” Thel is the newly appointed Artistic Director of the Trenton Children's Chorus. She will carry on the tradition of twenty years of fine choral music education that has prepared young voices to sing at the United Nations, the National Cathedral and with legendary artists Dave Brubeck and Bobby McFerrin.
Patricia Thel earned her BM in music education from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and her MM from East Carolina University where she also taught undergraduate courses. She is conductor of the Westminster Conservatory Children's Choir, a position she has held for almost twenty years, and will continue to conduct the select middle school choir, Cantus. This choir has also had a long history of performances at the White House and National Cathedral as well as performances at Richardson Auditorium and Westminster.
She admires the work of Sue Ellen Page, who along with Marcia Wood, founded TCC in 1989 so that Trenton area children could have access to high quality choral music education and have the opportunity to sing with children from a wide variety of backgrounds. “I have such deep respect for Sue Ellen and the convictions that moved her to found TCC. Her work impacted my own children. Any way I can share in it and support it I will,” says Thel.
Thel is no stranger to the Trenton Children's Chorus. Her youngest son is an alumni of TCC's Covenant Singers. As conductor of the Middle School Vocal Camp at Westminster Choir College, she works with TCC members who attend each summer. In 2007 Thel, then middle school choral conductor and teacher for Princeton Day School, combined her choir with TCC for the Martin Luther King Celebration at Princeton University, an event she calls one of the most meaningful experiences of the past few years.
Thel sings the praises of collaborating with other choirs. “There's a whole other dynamic when you're with another group. You really want to do your best. It needs time to congeal and can be tenuous at first, but what you end up with is creating a totally new sound. It's really exciting.”
When children make music together, they often end up as friends. “One of the wonderful things about bringing a diverse group together is that when they come from different schools they have different relationships not fraught with the social strata that kids create for themselves in schools,” says Thel.
Thel is especially excited about TCC's collaboration with area youth choirs scheduled for April 2010 at Princeton University. The Chorus has commissioned Francisco Nunez, Artistic Director of the Young People's Chorus of NYC, to create a work that will draw the singers together as a community. “When children pick up music written just for them and know it's something nobody has sung before, they get so excited the music just jumps off the page,” says Thel. “There is a particular feeling of worth that comes from being tied to others in the choir but also something larger outside themselves. It's something inexplicable.” In addition to TCC, the combined voices for this performance will include Thel's Cantus Choir of Westminster Conservatory and the Women's Choir of Princeton High School.
