September 18, 2025
Prince George High School's award-winning choir is slated to showcase its skills in front of music educators from across the Commonwealth during the upcoming Virginia Music Educators Association's statewide conference in Norfolk in November.
The school's choir will join a select group of choirs from across Virginia who have been invited to perform for hundreds of music educators. For the vocal group, this will be their second invitation in recent years to perform; however, 2025 will be the first time they will perform in person at the multi-day conference event, scheduled for November 20-22, 2025, in Hampton Roads.
In 2020, the chorus was invited to the VMEA conference, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the event was transitioned to a virtual experience. The ensemble and PGHS choral director, Mr. Storm Burks, opted to proceed with a pre-recorded performance, filmed in the school's auditorium, with spacing and other pandemic-related considerations in place.
Five years later, Mr. Burks looks back fondly on the resilience of his students and the program as the multi-time VMEA Blue Ribbon award-winning chorus gears up for its in-person performance later this fall.
"Here in Prince George and with what my mentality is and our students' mentalities, we're just going to find a way to make art happen and be relentless about it," Mr. Burks recalled. "So, doing this a second time, but being able to go to the event and have our students perform at the event just feels like a huge milestone. It feels like a big deal to me, both as an educator and a musician, and also to this program, to this county, and to these families and kids. I couldn't be more proud of their work and all the things that they've done."
In order to have the opportunity to perform at the statewide conference, prospective choirs have to submit a total of four recordings, two each from the previous two years. These recordings must be free of anything that could potentially identify the school, its location, or director; it must be purely their voice. Through adjudication, a panel will make blind selections of the ensembles that will perform at the VMEA conference.
Aside from the performances, the conference also serves as an opportunity for music educators like Mr. Burks and the division's other choral leaders to collaborate with colleagues from around Virginia, exchange ideas, and bring back valuable insights that benefit the budding performers they serve every day at their home schools.
Click HERE to view more videos of the chorus' performance at the New York Heritage Festival in 2024.
"Really, this conference is like IgnitePG, but for musicians," Mr. Burks said, referring to PGCPS' homegrown, two-day professional development conference held prior to the start of the school year. "There are many sessions we can attend, including textbook sessions, publishers share information about how their music could be good teaching pieces and linking them to key standards for us, along with general teaching practices, and opportunities to collaborate with other schools, both bigger and smaller than ours."
As the November show approaches, the high school's chorus calendar features a variety of events that will showcase the talents of local students. Coming up next week on Friday, September 26, 2025, the chorus will perform a selection of Disney favorites during their "Disney Spectacular" showcase at Prince George High School, with shows at both 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. In October, the district's Program for Artistically Advanced Services (PAAS) will host its vocal music festival, and further events are on tap into the holiday season through into the spring, including the division's Spring Fling arts showcase, which is entering its second decade of highlighting student excellence in the performing and visual arts.
In addition, the vocal ensemble is hopeful to travel to Florida for a competition and workshop opportunity to further develop their talents, with the goal of hosting fundraisers to support trip costs during the school year. In recent years, the chorus has traveled to multiple locales, including Florida, Tennessee, and Washington, D.C. In 2024, the chorus also had the unique opportunity to perform inside the renowned Riverside Church during the New York Heritage Festival, a venue that has hosted the likes of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Nelson Mandela within its historic walls.
With a full slate of events on deck for the chorus and the arts in general over the school year, Mr. Burks understands the important role the division's fledgling vocalists, musicians, actors, and visual artists have in keeping the arts thriving in Prince George County.
"I think it's a community that is hungry and really enjoys the arts," Mr. Burks shared. "Other than Fort Lee and Prince George High School, there's not a whole lot of opportunity for the arts in the area, so we are kind of the epicenter for the arts. Whether it's the Spring Fling, or a spring musical, a fall play, a band concert, or watching the marching band on a Friday night, our community really rallies around our programs."
Tickets are now on sale for the chorus' Disney Spectacular on Friday, September 26, 2025. More information is available at https://pghs.pgs.k12.va.us/apps/news/article/2106142.