Exceptional Choir Student Honored At All-State Music Festival

By Martha Coville

“That’s a really weird story,” said Newtown High School senior Ryan Silveria, of how he discovered his rare musical ability. “I was in the fifth grade chorus,” he said. “The teacher didn’t have a piano with her, so she started singing to warm up our voices. And I said, ‘You’re singing in D minor, and the song was written in G minor.”

Ryan has the ability, called perfect pitch, to identify a particular pitch upon hearing it, as he did that day in fifth grade chorus, and to sing a given pitch without reference. “I’m Mr Harned’s human pitch pipe,” Ryan said. He often gives the pitch at NHS choral rehearsals.

“I don’t know any exact statistics on how common perfect pitch is,” said John Harned, the choral director at NHS, “but I’ve only met three people in my life who have it.”

Ryan said that although he has sung and played piano for many years, he only became serious about music in high school. “I kind of always sang,” he said, “but I started taking voice lessons my freshman year.” He sings the NHS Chamber Choir, for which he receives school credit, and the after school Singers’ Club. “I’ve been playing the piano for 13 years, although it doesn’t show,” Ryan said with a laugh, “because I don’t practice.”

Ryan is also the only Newtown High School senior to be selected to perform at the Connecticut All-State Musical Festival four years in a row.

The festival choir is made up of an elite group of students who have passed two rounds of auditions, the first admitting them to a regional state choir and the second to the All-State Musical Festival.

Ryan admitted that auditions can be a little tricky for him, because he is blind. Typically, auditions require students to sight read a work they have never seen before. Instead, Ryan said that he relies on his pitch memory. In other words, he asks the judges to sing a passage out to him, and repeats it back.

Ryan said that one of the things he enjoyed about singing in the regional and state choirs is working with different conductors. In fact, he said, he plans on becoming a conductor and has applied to several colleges with programs in music education. He has also begun conducting the Singers’ Club as part of his senior project.

“There’s a bunch of things I’ve learned from working with the different conductors” at each festival Ryan said. “What we sing,” he said, “really depends on the director. This year we’re doing a lot of really obscure choir pieces.”

 “I’m also doing a senior project,” Ryan said. “It’s learning to conduct, and conducting the choir through a piece.”

Ryan will also being playing Rudolph, the head waiter in NHS’ production of Hello Dolly. The play begins Thursday, March 13, and runs through Sunday, the 16th.