EMMAUS, Pa. \u2014 The St. Ann School Chorus and band took the stage Wednesday night for their annual spring concert, filling the school gym in Emmaus with music as families packed the audience to celebrate the end of the school year.<\/p>\n
While the event highlighted the choir and band\u2019s work over the past year, one performance stood out as especially meaningful.<\/p>\n
That moment centered on 10-year-old Victoria Russell, a student who underwent a liver transplant earlier this year and continues to recover.<\/p>\n
The Sing Me a Story Foundation partnered with the St. Ann School Chorus to premiere an original composition, \u201cVictory-Victoria,\u201d based on Russell\u2019s story, drawing from her words and experiences, including her Make-A-Wish trip to Disney World.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it was a beautiful song. I think it was beautifully written,\u201d said her mother, Chantal Russell, who heard the piece for the first time during the concert.<\/p>\n
She said she chose not to preview the performance in advance. \u201cI wanted to be surprised. I wanted to see her reaction, like everyone’s reaction that were going to come out and support her,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Composer Thomas Schuttenhelm said the goal was to translate Russell\u2019s experience into music that could resonate with the community.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is so important to be part of the community and to provide something meaningful for a child through music,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Music teacher Ariel Scholz said the collaboration had a strong impact on the students. \u201cTo have this music actually written for us, for our choir and for Victoria. It just makes it meaningful in a whole different way,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just want to thank every single one that has been involved in this journey and I know that will continue to be here on this journey,\u201d Chantal Russell said.<\/p>\n
As the final notes echoed through the gym, the audience rose to its feet in a standing ovation for Russell and the performers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EMMAUS, Pa. \u2014 The St. Ann School Chorus and band took the stage Wednesday night for their annual…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":191849,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[214,232,153,155,154],"class_list":["post-191848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-_homepage_top_stories","tag-allentown-area","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191848"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191848\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/191849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}