Combined student and community ensembles at Maryville College begin rehearsals for new academic year
Aug. 11, 2025
During the summer months, the Clayton Center for the Arts is a lively beacon of community-oriented entertainment on the Maryville College campus, but the lifeblood of the grand fine arts facility — the students of the Division of Fine Arts who rehearse and perform there — are noticeably absent.
This week, however, they begin to return, first-year students on on Monday, Aug. 11, and upperclass Scots on Friday, Aug. 17. The doors to the Clayton Center as a classroom, a rehearsal space, a theater and a concert hall open alongside them, as the combined choral and instrumental programs of Maryville College begin their preparation for a new academic year.
“Our college and community ensembles are a wonderful part of Maryville College’s commitment to the arts in East Tennessee,” said Dr. Eric Simpson, associate professor of music and director of bands at MC. “One of the highlights of many of our students’ experiences is getting to know the wonderful musicians, both amateurs and professionals, who choose to be a part of these groups. Relationships, connections and even job placements happen because we bring the community and college together to make music.”
Over the next month, the various ensembles will begin their weekly rehearsals, which double as both an exercise in performance enhancement, and as practice for upcoming public concerts that will take place in the Clayton Center for the Arts. Dr. Dwight Dockery ’05, director of the Maryville College-Community Chorus, will again take the podium to lead the ensemble this year, and as always, collaboration with the Orchestra at Maryville College is an exciting goal toward which the singers he conducts will be working.
“This fall, the OMC and MC Community Chorus will be combining for a concert on Veterans Day, Nov. 11th,” Dockery said. “For this, the orchestra will lead us in the National Anthem, and we will be performing Randall Thompson’s extended work ‘The Testament of Freedom,’ which utilizes texts written by Thomas Jefferson and is a patriotic favorite of both ensembles and audiences alike.
“We will continue the concert with Z. Randall Stroope’s arrangement ‘Homeland’ of Gustav Holst’s beautiful hymn ‘I Vow to Thee, My Country,’ which Stroope dedicated to his father, who served in the military. For the Maryville Christmas concert, we will again partner with the OMC and the Maryville College Concert Choir; the community groups will be leading in a carol sing-along, and the Concert Choir will present Benjamin Britten’s enchanting ‘Ceremony of Carols.’”
And, as always, the chorus — along with the Orchestra at Maryville College (directed by Dr. Ace Edewards) and the Maryville College-Community Concert Band, or MC3 Band (directed by Jay Romines) — is open to those members of the public who sing or play and would like to add their talents to established ensembles.
“We welcome any and all who are interested to reach out to the conductors of these groups about the opportunity to be part of the fun,” Dockery said. “It is a wonderful way that Maryville College is in the community, and the community is part of Maryville College, and it presents the additional joy of intergenerational music making.”
The ensembles and their various rehearsal dates include:
Youth choirs
The Scottie Singers, a youth choir for students in grades four through eight that focuses on the fundamentals of music and the foundations of singing, begin rehearsals at 4 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 12. Led by Katie Wagner Philips ’03, with assistance from Maryville College music education majors, the group holds rehearsals from 4-5:30 p.m. every Tuesday in the Clayton Center’s Harry H. Harter Choral Rehearsal Room. Philips, who also earned a Master of Music in choral conducting from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, teaches an arts-integrated career exploration class at Foothills Elementary School, and parents interested in exploring opportunities for their children to join the Scottie Singers can contact her at scottiesingers@gmail.com or find out more information on the College’s website.
The Highlander Chorale, a youth choir for students in grades nine through 12, will begin rehearsals at 4 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 14, in the Harter choral rehearsal room of the Clayton Center. The chorale is led by Jacob Parauka, who recently received a master’s degree in music education from Troy University in Alabama. Parauka served as an MC choral assistant during the 2024-25 academic year, and he’ll lead Highlander Chorale rehearsals at 4 p.m. on Thursdays. For more information, email him at jacob.parauka@maryvillecollege.edu, or find out more information online.
Both the Scottie Singers and the Highlander Chorale will present a joint fall concert at 4 p.m. Nov. 16 in the Harold and Jean Lambert Recital Hall of the Clayton Center for the Arts.
The Orchestra at Maryville College
More than a century old, the college orchestra was established in 1916 and known simply as the “College Orchestra” until 1936, when the name was changed to the “Maryville Little Symphony Orchestra.” Starting in the 1930s, the group’s performance of Handel’s “Messiah” became a beloved community tradition, and today the OMC — which was rebranded as the Maryville-Alcoa College Community Orchestra in 1978 before finally being christened as the OMC in 2004 — serves as both a college and community ensemble.
The OMC begins rehearsals at 7 p.m. Monday, Sept. 8, in the Ronald and Lynda Nutt Theatre of the Clayton Center. Rehearsals — led by Edewards, a veteran of music work with the Marble City Opera and Knoxville Opera, in addition to founding the Scruffy City Orchestra — take place from 7-9 p.m. Mondays in the Nutt Theatre.
The ensemble uses a traditional symphony orchestra instrumentation, and both experienced musicians and serious high schoolers, especially string players, are encouraged to try out. Wind players and percussionists are auditioned for placement at the start of each season. For more information or to set up an audition, email Edewards ace.edewards@maryvillecollege.edu or fill out the online form.
The OMC will perform with the MC Community Chorus at 7 p.m. on Nov. 11 in the Nutt Theatre, and again for the annual Maryville College Christmas concert at 7 p.m. Dec. 2 in the Nutt Theatre.
MC3 Band
The Maryville College Community Concert Band was started by the late Dr. Larry Smithee in 1992 and is now led by Jay Romines, who has served as the band director of Knoxville Catholic High School for a quarter century. A saxophonist by trade, Romines also serves as the College’s saxophone instructor, making him an ideal director for a community ensemble that includes working musicians, educators, high school and college students, business professionals and retirees from throughout East Tennessee.
Using a symphonic band instrumentation, the band performs repertoire from the entire scope of the wind band tradition. Those interested in joining can schedule an audition by emailing Simpson at eric.simpson@maryvillecollege.edu, Jay Romines at jay.romines@maryvillecollege.edu, or by filling out a form on the College website.
Rehearsals begin at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 27, in the Clayton Center’s Nutt Theatre. Rehearsals will continue every Wednesday, with the band’s first public performance of the new academic year slated for 7 p.m. Nov. 20 in the Nutt Theatre.
The MC Community Chorus
With plans for collaboration during concerts less than a month apart, the members of the MC Community Chorus have just a few months to prepare ….but Dockery is confident they’ll be ready. After all, many of them are returning performers, and there’s always room for new members who wish to contribute their voices to the large group of more than 50 singers who present quality choral music, both alone and in collaboration with other community ensembles, several times each year.Rehearsals for the group begin at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 26, in the Harter choral rehearsal room of the Clayton Center, continuing every Tuesday throughout the academic year. The chorus is open to area singers 16 and older of all talent levels; experience reading music is helpful but not required, and registration and music will be available for interested participants at the first rehearsal. The MC Community Chorus will join the OMC for both the Veterans Day concert and the MC Christmas concert on Dec. 2. For more information, contact Stacey Wilner, director of choral activities at Maryville College, at stacey.wilner@maryvillecollege.edu, or Dockery at dwight.dockery@maryvillecollege.edu.