Auditions for the Wye Choral Scholars Program, offering middle and high school singers scholarships and first-rate training in music, will be held in the evening of Sunday, May 16 at the Old Wye Parish House, 14114 Old Wye Mills Rd. in Wye Mills.  An appointment for an audition should be made by calling Bonnie Forgacs at 410.463.1466.

The Program is open to boys and girls.  Students selected for the Program study, rehearse, and sing advanced music from diverse historical and cultural traditions.  Choral Scholars must complete an outreach and musical studies project, and rehearse and sing weekly with the Wye Parish Choir.

Wye Parish’s Choral Scholars receive voice lessons from Bonnie Forgacs, an opera singer who has performed at Carnegie Hall and has appeared as a soloist in numerous operatic performances in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.  Heard on both radio and television, she records with the Pro Arte Singers on the Musical Heritage Label.  Ms. Forgacs teaches voice at her studio in Denton and comes to St. Luke’s Chapel in Queenstown to instruct the Wye Choral Scholars.

The Choral Scholars each receive eighty dollars per month as a stipend. Twenty dollars of the stipend is for their own use, and they are encouraged to spend it in pursuit of their musical interests.  The remaining sixty dollars is deposited in an educational fund that the Choral Scholars Program has established for each scholar at the Mid-Shore Community Foundation in Easton.

Wye Choral Scholars sing with the Wye Parish Choir and as a unique ensemble from September through May on the first and third Sundays of the month at the 10 a.m. service at historic Old Wye Church in Wye Mills, and on the second and fourth Sundays at the 8 a.m. service at St. Luke’s Chapel in Queenstown.