OWENSBORO, Ky. – One might think they had entered the wrong building on the Brescia University Campus recently, if they attended the Owensboro Elementary Schools Choir Festival 2001 performance here on Saturday, March 24, in the lecture hall .

The room was filled with students bending over, stretching their arms high, getting themselves into all kinds of body positions and making funny noises.

Actually, guest choir director Sr. Mary Henning, O.S.U., was leading the fourth, fifth, and sixth grade students from Bishop Francis R. Cotton, Bishop Henry Soenneker, Catherine Spalding, Holy Angels, and St. Angela Merici Schools, in a series of calisthenics and breathing exercises, before beginning the 9:00 AM practice sessions for the Choral Festival to be held at 2:00 PM in the afternoon.

Sr. Mary Henning instructed the children to stand up straight, shoulders back, chest out, and to smile and sing with joy. "The body is like a musical instrument," Sr. Mary Henning said, "just like any other instrument, such as the flute or horn and must be warmed up first."

Due to the six weeks of practice sessions during the children’s regular music curriculum and Sr. Mary Henning’s ability to pull everything together at the morning practice session on the day of the festival, the performance by the choir, which was well attended, could definitely be considered a success by music teachers Bonnie Brown, Janis Blandford, and Virginia Blandford, organizers of the first Choral Festival to be presented here.

" The means for the children to attend out of town festivals is not available," Said Ms. Blandford, "and the children need the experience so we decided to hold our own festival."