Two Okarche youth are among those in an Oklahoma youth choir invited to perform in June at the D-Day 75th Anniversary Commemoration Ceremonies in Normandy, France.
Maddie Vogt, a sixth-grade student at Holy Trinity in Okarche and Garrett England, a fifth-grade Okarche Elementary student are members of the Canterbury Youth Voices, the group of singers invited to the summer ceremonies in France. The two local performers are cousins.
The Singers will perform at commemoration ceremonies at both the Normandy and Brittany American cemeteries. They will also perform at Sainte-Mere-Eglise, the first village to be liberated by American paratroopers, in a Musical Salute to Liberation. Students will also have the opportunity to visit historic sites, such as the Omaha and Normandy beaches, and sites in Paris including Montmartre, the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower.
Choir members are students in grades two through 12 and they come from 36 different schools in the Oklahoma City metropolitan area.
“Canterbury Youth Voices is a curricular and performance-based youth choral program from the Oklahoma City metro area,” said choir spokesperson Joanie Pullen.
She said the choir stresses artistic and personal excellence by enhancing the singing skills and musical literacy of children through choral music training and performance opportunities.
In addition to the performance in France this summer, the young choir members have had the opportunity to perform with professional musicians at the Civic Center Music Hall in Oklahoma City, at Oklahoma City Thunder professional basketball games, other nationally televised sporting events and in regional and national musical contests.
The choir will present a public Send-off Concert at 4 p.m., Saturday, May 30 in the Petree Recital Hall at the Wanda L. Bass School of Music on the campus of Oklahoma City University.”
