Ebertz Scholarship Winner and Friends Perform in KC with National Choir

Mar 10, 2019

In the end, when they were supposed to know if they’d been accepted, the all-important email was nowhere to be found.

Only a phone call from their professor would let them know. “Did you hear? Congratulations!” said Megan Boyd, Xavier’s director of choral activities.

The trio — Mary Kate Dearie, Natalie Ferraro and Max Yoder — didn’t know how to reply. Congratulations for what? Surely it wasn’t about the American Choral Directors Association National Honor Choir. I mean, they were supposed to

get an email.

“It went to spam!” says Natalie, now able to laugh about it all. “Of course, it was a really important email and it went to our spam folders.”

And that’s how the three friends found out they’d made it into the prestigious honor choir, which only meets every two years. All three traveled to Kansas City from Feb. 27 – March 2 and performed in front of thousands of singers from across the country. The students were chosen from thousands of recorded auditions and are currently preparing to sing with some of the finest choral conductors in the field.

But it wasn’t the first honor Natalie had won as part of a Xavier. She is also the recipient of the Joseph E. and Pauline Ebertz Edgecliff Memorial Scholarship.

It’s part of the reason the junior music education major from Middletown, Ohio, has been able to stay at Xavier. “It’s definitely made things easier,” she says.

And in December, she was able to meet those who had helped her.

“This past December, I sang with the other members of the Edgecliff Vocal Ensemble for the annual tree lighting ceremony hosted by the Edgecliff College Deck the Hall Committee,” she says. “I had the opportunity to meet the current representatives for the Ebertz Scholarship.”

She was able to tell them how much it meant to her.

“I was very thankful,” she says. And now she and her friends can say they represented Xavier across the country.

Mary Kate Dearie, a junior music education major from Lebanon, Ohio, says she wants to go on to graduate school for vocal performance, while Max Yoder, a senior biology major from Fairfield, Ohio, said he’d always been interested in music, and the opportunity to be in the choir was something he couldn’t pass up.

Natalie says she’d love to teach an elementary or middle school choir.

“We are so proud of Mary Kate, Natalie, and Max for earning this achievement,” Megan Boyd says. “Each of these young singers represents the best of Xavier music and I couldn't be more excited for them to have this opportunity. I know the experience will help them grow as musicians and humans, and they will return to Xavier ready to share their new knowledge and musical leadership with our ensembles here on campus.”

And after they’d performed?

“For me, this was truly an experience I will never forget for the rest of my life,” Natalie says. “I know that sounds cliche, but there is no better way to describe it.”

Their schedules were hectic, singing and rehearsing for the entire day and getting little sleep in the process, but the trio says the exhaustion that came with the trip was worth every minute. 

“It was so gratifying, for me, as both a singer and a future music educator, to attend this conference among 320 other female singers and work together to create a beautiful and remarkable musical experience,” Natalie says. After the few days of rehearsing and staging, the big moment when we finally performed at the gorgeous Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, I was overwhelmed with amazement and satisfaction.”

Images provided
Top image: Max Yoder, Natalie Ferraro and Mary Kate Dearie
Middle Image: The trio traveled to Kansas City from Feb. 27 – March 2 and performed in front of thousands of singers from across the country as part of the American Choral Directors Association National Honor Choir.