Plainfield Girlchoir - Ledger - Plainfield choir sets a high note

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Published in the Star-Ledger, Thursday, June 1, 2006

Plainfield choir sets a high note

Thursday, June 01, 2006

The Plainfield Girlchoir, directed by Domecq Smith, went on its first international tour and competition last month and won first place for women's choir and third place overall choir in Toronto, Canada.

The competition was held at the Martingrove Collegiate Institute, and the choir won despite the fact that 16 of the 18 girls were ill.

Smith said competitors included high school choruses from Pennsylvania, Florida, Massachusetts and New York that were four to eight times the size of the Girlchoir.

The Girlchoir's members are ages 8 to 18, mostly from a lower socio-economic background, he said.

"There were many people who thought we were crazy trying to take on a trip like this, and felt that we could never get the finances to do it," said Smith's wife, Peach Smith, the tour coordinator.

"Children will only be at that impressionable age once, and being able to touch the lives of these girls in a positive way outranks the problems of the here and now that will always be around in one form or another," she said.

Smith said her husband "is passionate about teaching music, about quality, about giving the underprivileged a chance, about finding talent in children that have been overlooked or don't even realize how much they are capable of."

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