TORRINGTON – The sanctuary at First Wyoming Presbyterian here rang with familiar sounds Sunday as 17-voices were joined in praise for the season.
The annual Palm Sunday performance of the Easter Cantata at First Wyoming is a tradition dating back more than 45 years. As always, this year’s cantata – entitled Hallelujah! What a Savior! – came together under the direction of Joyce Willeke, a retired school music teacher who started the group.
Willeke was director of music for the Methodist Church in Torrington when she and her choir conceived of the idea. They were looking for a challenge beyond the traditional musical selections from the hymnals, she said.
“We felt we had such wonderful talent, we wanted to do something more difficult,” Willeke said. “We thought it would be wonderful to involve the community. It just blossomed from there.”
Each year, Willeke orders and listens to 15-20 cantatas from a specialty music company and selects the one she thinks will be a hit with both performers and audience. She’s looking for that special something, she said, even though she can’t precisely describe what that “something” is.
“It’s a little esoteric,” Willeke said. “It’s the words, it’s the music, it’s the way it’s put together.
“It has to tell the story correctly,” she said. “Put that all together and it makes a beautiful thing.”
The group has performed its cantatas around the county and around the region, several members said Sunday. While loosely based out of the Presbyterian Church, the singers come from churches all over Torrington and Goshen County.
“They announce (cantata practice) in the different churches,” said bass singer Gary DeBolt. “Anybody who comes, comes.”
The choir rehearses and performs two cantatas each year, one for Easter and one during the Christmas season. Rehearsals for each begin about six weeks in advance of the first performance – in February for the Easter Cantata and in October for Christmas – for about 90-minute sessions starting at Willeke’s home.
Standard procedure is the men and women in the choir will rehearse and learn their parts separately. Then, about two weeks before the first performance, they’ll start rehearsing together at the church. But this year wasn’t standard, with the performance Sunday the first time they’d sang this year’s cantata as a group.
It’s tough rehearsing in Willeke’s home, particularly for the Christmas cantata, members of the group said. It’s a constant battle between the music and Willeke’s other passion – the Denver Broncos.
When asked, Willeke laughed, noting being a Bronco fan wasn’t a prerequisite for joining the choir. But there have been several members who were as passionate about the team as she is, she said, keeping “one eye on me and one on the Broncos” playing in the background.
All kidding aside, the reception the group’s performances receive each year keep them coming back. In addition to Sunday services at the Presbyterian Church, the group will take their shows on the road, singing for inmates at the minimum-security detention center east of Torrington. Then, it’s back to the church for a free performance for the community.
This year’s community performance of the Easter Cantata is scheduled for 7 p.m. on Good Friday, March 30, at the church.
The cantatas are always a welcome addition to the services and to the community, said Pastor Kate Morrison, associate pastor for youth and young adult at First Wyoming. The congregation embraces the group each year, she said.
“We’re very glad they feel that’s part of their ministry, that they can come and present it here,” Morrison said. “We’re blessed to get both cantatas – Easter and Christmas.
“We are feeling very blessed, they come and sing to us during our Holy Week and then we get to celebrate with them again on Good Friday,” she said. “Our church loves it.”
Willeke has promised they’d never repeat a cantata and, so far in 45 years, they never have. There may be some similarities between some of the individual pieces in cantatas, she said. But, if they’re too close, they don’t make the cut.
“I don’t like to repeat,” Willeke said. “I think it cheats the audience and it’s not fair for the performers.”
Willeke taught music for 37 years, 34 of those in charge of the kindergarten through 12th grade programs at Southeast High School in Yoder, both vocal and instrumental. Seeing some of her former students return to perform with the cantata choir is one of the great joys of her life, she said.
And it’s that same passion which brings performers back for the cantata choir each year. Beyond their faith, it’s almost a family.
“It’s a beautiful way to share a testimony through music and the spoken word,” long-time member JoAnn Robbins said.
“And it helps us share our religion with the community,” DeBolt said. “Even though our religions don’t always agree or believe the same things, we share the same stories.”
