St John’s UMC, Corpus Christi www.stjohnsumccc.com

Southwest Texas Children’s Choir to perform at St. John’s UMC

The Southwest Texas Children’s Choir, under the direction of Marco Melendez, will perform a concert at St. John’s UMC on Monday, June 2 at 7:00 pm.

The Southwest Texas Children’s Choir is based at First United Methodist Church in San Angelo, Texas. Marco Melendez, artistic director and founder, is also the Director of Music and Fine Arts at FUMC. The choir is made up of students from the third through eighth grades. Their performance will cover a wide variety of choral styles, including sacred music, patriotic songs, show tunes and world music.

The concert is free and open to the public. A freewill offering will be taken to help defray expenses for the choir’s Texas Tour. Their 2008 tour includes stops in Dallas, Austin, Houston, Corpus Christi, San Antonio, and San Angelo.

FMI: Contact the church office at 991-4342.

What follows is an interesting “story behind the story” of the concert.

“Marco and Me”
by John Elford, April 2008
On Monday, June 2, Marco Melendez, Director of Music and Fine Arts at FUMC, San Angelo, Texas, will bring his Southwest Texas Children’s Chorus to Corpus Christi for an evening concert at St. John’s UMC. The concert will begin at 7 pm and is free (a love offering will be taken) and open to the public. What follows is the story behind the concert.

In the fall of 1996, I was the Associate Pastor and Director of Music at First UMC, San Angelo, Texas. One afternoon, an agent with the American Boychoir, the premier American concert boys choir, called and asked if we would like to host a concert on their upcoming Texas tour. When I found out how much the concert would cost, I sighed and said, “I’ll get back to you.” They were clearly way beyond my meager budget. However, later that day, one of our church members (who also happened to be a great patron of the arts) stopped by the church office and I asked her about the American Boychoir’s offer. She took out her checkbook and underwrote the concert.

In February, 1997, the American Boychoir arrived in San Angelo and put on a stunning concert. One of their traditions is, at the end of every concert, they hold auditions for any boys interested in joining the choir. I still remember hearing this rich, sonorous young voice float out over the sanctuary during the auditions and I turned to someone and asked, “Who is that? He sounds like an angel!” The voice belonged to Marco Melendez, a 12 year-old sixth grader, who attended the concert and loved to sing. Apparently he made quite an impression. Two days after the concert, the school called Marco’s mom and asked him to join the American Boychoir. Marco headed off to Princeton, NJ, to begin school there and join the touring choir.

Fast forward to last year. The Director of Music at First United Methodist Church in San Angelo resigned and who should they hire? Marco Melendez, now 23 years old and a graduate of Westminster Choir College, one of the best choral conducting schools in the country. After exchanging some notes, Marco and I finally connected up by phone last week and he is quite excited about plans for his upcoming choir tour. He told me, “Perhaps a young person will be inspired to pursue a musical career as I was when you brought the American Boychoir to San Angelo.” 5300 S. Alameda Street 1 of 1 Corpus Christi, TX