1990 Cabarrus CV Ensemble Reunion

In 1990 Richard Keasler retired from the Cabarrus County School System in North Carolina. He was the choral director for many years for the 3 Cabarrus County High Schools: Central Cabarrus H.S., Mount Pleasant H.S. and Northwest Cabarrus H.S. In the early 1970’s he had a dream that became a reality to form small singing group that could come together on short notice to sing for special occasions. He named the group, the Cabarrus County Vocal Ensemble, made up of members of the 3 county high schools. After the first year or two, to be in the Ensemble you had to audition and almost always you had to be a junior or senior. You were chosen for your musical ability, your potential musical ability and how well you could relate with other people. Each year a newly formed group would emerge, made up of members that were juniors from the year before that are now seniors and new members who made it thru the auditions. Practice was on Monday nights 7 to 9pm at Central Cabarrus. The ensemble would sing for churches, civic groups, other schools and a lot of various occasions. In the earlier year’s one of favored occasions was a several day trip to Boone, NC, to sing for kids in some of the surrounding mountain schools. Later, some of the field trips would include going to other countries to sing. Each year the Ensemble would become a close knit family that would last a lifetime. Thank You Mr. Keasler for sharing your dream that has so deeply touched so many lives along the way. In 1990 some of the ensemble members heard he was retiring and decided to call as many members as possible for a farewell party and an Ensemble reunion for Mr. Keasler. We met at the Central Cabarrus auditorium that day for rehearsal followed by a performance directed by Mr. Keasler, for the families and the public which turned out to be a very blessed occasion. I recorded the performance on a VHS video camera. I have been unable to find the tapes but at one time I copied this song, Breathe On Me Breath of God, from those tapes performed by the 20 year span of members of the Cabarrus County Vocal Ensemble that attended. We were unable to get in touch with all the members but we did have a large turnout. This recording went from a VHS tape to a cassette tape to an audio cd to an MP3 file. There is a lot of hiss on the recording but it still sounds pretty good except for the recording not to be balanced left and right. The piano played the pitch but after that there no musical instruments used just the fantastic acoustics of that auditorium. If you can, listen to this song on a very good headset or connect to a good sound system. The end of the song sounds like an organ playing along with the singing. I hope you enjoy the song. Kyle Allman 12-27-2011