2025 Honors Chorus

Dr. Carol Earnhardt is the Assistant Director of Choral Activities at High Point University where she directs the Women’s Choir and the Chapel Choir. A National Board Certified teacher since 2005, she completed the PhD in Music Education Master from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG) in December 2020.

Outside the University, she is the artistic director of the Heart of the Triad Choral Society, an adult community choir that performs with a professional orchestra twice a year. Mrs. Earnhardt is the Immediate Past-President of the North Carolina Music Educators Association (NCMEA), and in that position, frequently travels to Raleigh, NC and Washington DC to advocate for the inclusion of music as a core component of every child’s education. Mrs. Earnhardt is also a member of the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA) and has served in multiple capacities on the governing boards of both NCMEA and ACDA.

Recently, Dr. Earnhardt retired after 30 years in public school choral music education. For 25 years, she was the chorus teacher at Glenn High School in Kernersville, NC. Under her direction, the choral department at Glenn High School grew to be a respected choral program in North Carolina, performing by invitation at Carnegie Hall, the National Cathedral, St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City, the North Carolina Music Educators Association (NCMEA) Conference and the North Carolina American Choral Directors Association (ACDA) Conference. Her choirs at Glenn collaborated frequently with university and professional choirs and, most recently, performed Dan Forrest’s “Requiem for the Living” with Bel Canto, a professional choir in Greensboro. Mrs. Earnhardt has served as the clinician for all county and state-wide choral clinics in North Carolina. In 2006, she was elected as the Teacher of the Year for Glenn High School and, in 2007, was named the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Teacher of the Year. In 2015, she was named the NCMEA High School Choral Section State Teacher of the Year, and in 2021 was awarded the prestigious Lara Hoggard award for excellence in conducting from the North Carolina chapter of ACDA.

Earnhardt’s proudest accomplishments are her marriage to Mike Earnhardt since 1989. The couple has three children and two grandchildren. Her daughter Ashley and son-in-law Roman Brady are both high school chorus teachers and are the parents to her two grandsons. Her son John Michael is a U.S. Army Veteran and is newly married to Macey. Her youngest son Chase serves as a 2nd Lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force stationed in Okinawa, Japan.

Dr. Marc Ashley Foster is Chair of the Department of Music and Director of Choral Activities at High Point University (HPU). In his nine years at HPU, Dr. Foster has overseen a significant expansion of the Department of Music, with the addition of 23 new music faculty, 90 music majors/minors, 133 students singing in choirs, 13 new instrumental ensembles, and over 375 students in private lessons. Dr. Foster has taught at the University of Texas at Arlington in Arlington, Texas and Millsaps College in Jackson, Mississippi and comes to High Point after serving as the Director of Worship Arts Ministries at Galloway Memorial United Methodist Church in Jackson, Mississippi and as the Artistic Director of the Mississippi Chorus.

Dr. Foster received a Doctor of Music Arts degree (DMA) in Choral Conducting from The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, a Master of Sacred Music degree (MSM) from Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, and the Bachelor of Music Education degree (BM Ed) in Choral Conducting and Voice from The University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

Dr. Foster has served as the Research and Standards Chair for College/University Choirs for the North Carolina American Choral Directors Association (ACDA) and has served as the Music in Worship Chair for the Mississippi chapter of the American Choral Directors Association. Dr. Foster has lectured, conducted clinics, workshops, and honor-choir events internationally in Prague, Czech Republic; York, England; and Vienna, Austria; and nationally throughout Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma, Georgia, Mississippi, and North Carolina. Dr Foster was the conductor for the 9th/10th grade North Carolina All-State Chorus in May, 2015.

His choirs have been honored to perform solo concerts at Carnegie Hall in New York; recent conference and convention performances include being the featured collegiate choir performing at the North Carolina Music Educators Association (NCMEA) Conference in 2013; the regional conference of the College Music Society (CMS) in March 2015; the North Carolina American Choral Directors Association (ACDA) Conference in September, 2015 and 2018; the Southern Division Conference of the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA) in Chattanooga, TN in March, 2016; and was honored to be one of the featured collegiate choirs at the Quadrennial General Conference of the United Methodist Church in Portland, Oregon in May, 2016. January through May 2017, Dr Foster and a choral ensemble from High Point University spent the semester in Prague, Czech Republic, studying and performing concerts and recitals throughout Europe. The HPU Chamber Singers have also been featured on several compact disc recordings from Hinshaw Music Inc., and have been honored to premier choral works by Dan Forrest, Richard Waters, James Green, David Schwoebel, and others.

His church choirs have appeared at such venues as the Annual Conferences of the United Methodist Church of South Georgia, the dedication service for the Mississippi United Methodist Bishop, Hope Morgan Ward, and the Annual Conferences of the Mississippi United Methodist Church. His youth choirs have been featured at events for the William Winter Institute on the Annual Civil Rights Pilgrimage of United States Congressmen and Congresswomen to Mississippi.

Dr. Foster is the proud father of Michael and Pearson, who attend Ledford High School in Davidson County and is married to Dr. Catheryn Shaw Foster, professor and coordinator of Music Education at Fayetteville State University in Fayetteville, NC.

High School Repertoire Theme: The Human Spirit

The Restless Spirit 
Nda Wana, Barrett (2:20)
JW Pepper Link

Nda Wana is a game of the Venda children (Africa).

I found the children playing
While the birds were singing
By the river as they resisted sleep

The Generous Spirit
Come you who are filled, Hall (3:08)
JW Pepper Link

Come, you who are filled, whose feet burrow in rich, pungent earth,
whose fingers sift ripe, golden grain,
who dance in the rainfall of blessings. 
Come.

Come, you who have thirst whose feet scuff powdery, infertile soil,
whose fingers scrape dry, dying seed,
who stumble in a shower of indifference.

Come, you who are thirsty.
Let those who are filled welcome you with dippers of cool clean water,
that all children on Earth,
that all may come to bathe in rivers of justice.

Sip from sweet pools of mercy, 
quench thirst in a watershed of love.

The Resilient Spirit
Temporal, Diana Saez (resilience of the human spirit) (3:27)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6yMOYs0A7Y&t=182s
Order Link: https://www.lavozmusicpublishing.com/catalogue/p/temporal

Diana Saez is a leading specialist in the field of Latin American music. Temporal is a traditional plena from Puerto Rico. Plena is an Afro-Puerto Rican rhythm that blends melodic and rhythmic elements from Spanish and African musical influences. Temporal means “storm”. The composition celebrates the resilient nature of the people of Puerto Rico after surviving a hurricane.

There comes! There comes the storm! Storm, storm
There comes the storm.
What will become of Puerto Rico when the storm arrives?
What will become of my Borinquen when the storm arrives?
The people arise to the rhythm of the drums.
The wind cannot bring us down nor ten thousand earthquakes.
We are resilient!
We are warriors!
The wind cannot bring us down nor ten thousand earthquakes.

The Empathetic Spirit
Does the World Say?, Kyle Pedersen (5:00)
JW Pepper Link

Does the world say that you don't look the right way?
Does the world say that you're just not enough? 
Does the world say that this isn’t the right spot?
When it wants you there but not here and tells you all the things you are not.

I've been there, too. It's hard to shut my ears to the noise.

I don't stand a chance if it's me in this world all alone.
The chatter is deafening, too overwhelming, hard to find my way home.

So take my hand...don’t let go. 

Does the world say that you don’t think the right things?
Does the world say that you’re not worth the time?
Does the world laugh when you fall, when you cry?
Does it turn the other way every time you walk by?

I'm growing, learning, 
loving, becoming.

So take my hand...don’t let go.

The Cheerful Spirit
Celebrate, Keith Hampton (4:00)
JW Pepper Link

Collaborative closing MS-HS Piece = Es Tu Tiempo by Nunez
JW Pepper Link