Area Singers Going To Carnegie Hall

Lurene Pirello has been singing in a Spokane Valley church choir for four decades, but her biggest performance is yet to come.

The Valley resident is one of about 20 senior singers from Spokane who will perform at New York’s Carnegie Hall in April.

They are members of the Senior Serenaders chorus, part of the larger Project Joy cultural program for seniors.

“I figure at my age I better do everything I can while I can,” said Pirello, who sings for both the Senior Serenaders and the St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church choir in the Spokane Valley.

“Anything you get a chance to do you should do,” she said.

Mabel Stewart, another serenader, grew up with music, too.

She performed with her parents in a dance band when she was young. As an adult, she sang in church choirs.

“I never dreamed I’d be in New York in Carnegie Hall on stage,” said Stewart, who lives in the Lidgerwood neighborhood on the North Side.

Spokane’s senior singers were invited to become part of a larger chorus that will meet for a one-time performance on April 3.

The group is planning a five-day, four-night stay.

“These people are seniors, but they can also perform,” said Teresa Slater, a longtime Valley resident and choral director for the group.

“The basses still have nice low tones,” she said. “We have ladies who can get to the highest notes.”

The singers will be accompanied in Carnegie Hall by the New England Symphonic Ensemble.

“Requiem,” a 1947 piece by French composer Maurice Durufle, was selected for the concert.

It is a complex work of music, not only because it is performed in Latin, but because it includes repeated changes in meter and key.

The seniors have been rehearsing the work for six weeks.

“Requiem” is based on Gregorian chants and is known as the “Mass of the Dead.”

But rather than being dark and funereal, “Requiem” evokes peace and beauty, Slater said.

“It is contemplative in some spots. It is rousing in other spots, just beautiful, serene and restful,” she said.

“The music is uplifting because it is taking you to heaven.”

Slater, a retired music teacher in the Central Valley School District, is a colleague of Randi von Ellefson, who formerly taught at Whitworth College and directed the Spokane Symphony Chorale.

Von Ellefson will direct the Carnegie Hall performance. He was responsible for getting the invitation sent to Slater in her role as chorale director of the St. Mary’s Church adult choir.

Slater’s New York contingent includes members of the St. Mary’s choir and the Senior Serenaders.

Like Pirello, some of them sing in both groups.

Members of the Spokane Symphony Chorale and other Spokane church choirs were invited independently.

The Senior Serenaders was formed three years ago.

In Spokane, the serenaders appear at retirement centers doing songs that rekindle fond memories for older folks.

During a recent practice, they worked on patriotic songs like “Yankee Doodle” and “Grand Old Flag.” They also branched into more challenging pieces like the jazz-flavored, “As Time Goes By,” from the movie “Casablanca.”

Some of the other senior singers from the Valley who are going to New York include Cathy Mileson, Tomi and Mary Zografos, and Mitchell and Bonne King.