The Unionville High School students selected for prestigious Pennsylvania Music Educators Association (PMEA) District Choir. Katie Cotrotsios, Noori Choudhary, Marshall Gantt, Ian Gushurst, Nathaniel Gushurst, Brianna Greeley, Sofia McClain, Morgan Monthei, Will Neuberger, Advith Rajkumar and Jinny Zhao.
Unionville High School (UHS) Choral students were selected to perform in two major choral organizations, with eleven participating in the prestigious Pennsylvania Music Educators Association (PMEA) District Choir and two chosen for the acclaimed American Choral Directors Association (ACDA) Honors Choir.
To qualify for PMEA, student musicians must audition at each level (District, Region and State). The process includes the preparation of nine or ten choir songs for an audition where the judges will ask the auditionee to sing only one randomly selected excerpt from the prepared music.
Congratulations to Katie Cotrotsios, Noori Choudhary, Marshall Gantt, Ian Gushurst, Nathaniel Gushurst, Brianna Greeley, Sofia McClain, Morgan Monthei, Will Neuberger, Advith Rajkumar and Jinny Zhao, who were selected for the PMEA District Chorus and participated in the festival earlier this month. Choudhary, Cotrostsios, Gantt, Gushurst, Monthei, McClain and Rajkumar earned a spot in the PMEA Regional Chorus on March 15, 2025, at Garnet Valley High School.
“PMEA has been a wonderful experience, it has shaped me as a musician,” Unionville High School senior Marshall Gantt explained. Gantt, who has been involved in PMEA throughout his high school career shared, “I owe so much to it because it helped me with my musicality and learning to thrive in a competitive environment. It’s given me the confidence for my future musical pursuits beyond Unionville.”
Gantt and UHS sophomore Nathaniel Gushurst were selected for the ACDA Honors Choir and will attend the National Conference March 18-22 in Dallas, TX. The one-time audition process for ACDA requires musicians to record themselves doing vocal scales or excerpts of songs. These students will meet some of the best high school singers from across the country and have the opportunity to work with some of the best composers and conductors in the world.
UHS senior, Brianna Greeley, who has attended ACDA previously, shared “Getting to meet all the composers who made the music was such an incredible experience. Hearing firsthand from directors and composers about the story of their music was special.” Greeley explained she owes these opportunities to UHS Choral Director, Mr. Jason Throne. “You can tell he cares so much about what he does, it helps you care so much about what you want to do as well.”
“I am incredibly proud of our UHS choir students who qualified in the PMEA and ACDA festivals,” Mr. Jason Throne shared. “Their dedication, hard work, and countless hours of preparation truly set them apart. They represent the very best of what it means to be a UHS music student.”
