FEATURES | carlow choir

Singing for the Lord

SOUTH MISSISSIPPI’S CARLOW CHOIR
GAINS INTERNATIONAL EXPOSURE

V TEXT BY ROBYN JACKSON

Vicki Priebe was just looking for a relaxing

evening when she decided to attend a 2007
concert in Hattiesburg by classical guitarist
John DeChiaro. She had no idea the concert
would change her life.
After his performance, DeChiaro brought
out members of the Carlow Choir, a nonde-
nominational ensemble he had founded in
2005, shortly after Hurricane Katrina, to
bring hope to residents of storm-ravaged
South Mississippi and Louisiana.
“He was recruiting,” Priebe said. Touched
by their brief performance, she decided to
join.
“It gave me a new direction in my life,”
Priebe said. “My husband had passed away a
few years earlier.”
The choir has accomplished a great deal in
the four short years since its founding. Last
October, the choir traveled to Italy to per-
form for Pope Benedict XIV at the Vatican. In
September it recorded a concert for
Mississippi Public Broadcasting in Jackson,
and there will be a concert at Carnegie Hall
in 2011. In November, the choir taped a con-
cert for EWTN, the Catholic television chan-
nel.
“It was a very rigorous process we had to
go through to get this,” DeChiaro said. “I’ve
been trying for two years to get this. This
will give us international exposure because
EWTN airs around the world.”
DeChiaro, a retired professor at the
University of Southern Mississippi, named the
choir after the seminary in Ireland where
many of South Mississippi’s priests were edu-
cated, so members are especially excited
about headlining a choir festival next October
at Carlow College. They will also perform at
St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin. The tour
came about after two women wearing Carlow
Choir T-shirts were stopped in Assisi, Italy, on
their 2008 tour, by a man who was from
Carlow, Ireland. One thing led to another, and
they were eventually invited to perform at
the college.
A CD, “Reflections for the Heart: Sacred
Anthems for Choir,” was released this autumn
by Centaur Records. It was recorded in August
2008 at Southwest Mississippi Community

18 a cc e n t s o u t h m i s s i s s i p p i
College in Summit.
“The music on this disk is
sacred anthems,” DeChiaro
said. “It’s what I call the best
of the Bible. There are verses
of the Bible that people set to
music, such as the 23rd Psalm.
The song ‘Weep, Mother Mary,’
describes what she must have
felt when she saw Jesus dying
on the cross. We sang these
songs on our tour of Italy.”
The approximately 150-
member choir is divided into
two groups, one that is based
in Hattiesburg and one that is
based in Alexandria, La.,
where DeChiaro is currently
employed as director of the
string music program for the
Alexandria public school sys-
tem. He makes the four-hour
drive from Alexandria to
Hattiesburg each week to work
with the Hattiesburg choir.
The members are equally as
dedicated. Some drive to
Hattiesburg from as far away
as McComb, the Mississippi
Gulf Coast and New Orleans
each Monday night for rehears-
al at River of Life Church on
U.S. 98 West.
“We love it, we love John,”
said Mary Ellen Lestrade, who
drives up from Escatawpa with
her husband, Oscar. “We first
started singing with John
about 10 years ago (when he
was choir director) at another
church on the Coast. It means
too much to us, we missed it.
Around Christmas time, we
came back.”
Alan Butner joined the tenor
section a few months ago. “One
of the ladies recruited me,” he
said. “I thought I could sing for
the Lord.”
DeChiaro said part of the
reason for the choir’s success
is that it “becomes the voice
of God” during performances.
“Whenever we give con-
certs, people are always crying
because the music touches
them,” he said.
DeChiaro, who had per-
formed on guitar for Pope John
Paul II twice at the Vatican,
said he decided to submit a
demo tape of the choir to the
Vatican on a whim. After a
lengthy acceptance process,
Carlow Choir was invited to
perform for Benedict XIV.
There’s a big difference
between performing a solo gui-
tar concert for the pope and
conducting a large choir,
DeChiaro said.
“When you’re doing it by
yourself, you just have to
worry about you, not 140 peo-
ple,” he said.
Priebe said God has His hand
on the Carlow Choir and is
blessing it.
“It’s just wonderful to see
how God has brought people
together from all denomina-
tions,” Priebe said. “When we
sing, we’re singing from our
hearts and our experience.”

CARLOW CHOIR
Rehearsals are held at 7 p.m. Monday
at River of Life Church on U.S. 98
West. Anyone interested in joining
Carlow Choir can attend.

For more information, go to

www.carlowchoir.org.

The CD is $15 and is available at

Doherty’s Furniture, Lil Butcher
Shoppe, Lovie’s and Westgate
Cleaners, and from Amazon.com
and iTunes.

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