The UT Chamber Singers have become cultural ambassadors through song.
Sarah Kitts had never been overseas before. “I hadn’t even been on an airplane,” says Kitts, a senior vocal education major from Seymour, Tennessee.
But since she was four years old, learning to sing from her grandpa inside her dad’s auto repair shop and later at home and in church, she dreamed of becoming a singer. “Music is my love language,” she says. “The music we sing can connect with people from so many different walks of life.”
This summer Kitts was one of 30 UT students who traveled as members of the Chamber Singers to the United Kingdom, where the group sang in cathedrals and churches and for communities across England and Scotland. Kitts, who attends the university on a UT Promise scholarship covering her full tuition and fees, had never expected to have access to this type of opportunity.
“When we were in London, my friends were like, ‘Oh, this is kind of like New York and Chicago.’ I’d never been there either,” says Kitts, who plans to become a grade school choir director after graduation. “My high school is literally in front of a cow field.”
“But that experience just made me want to see more of America and the world,” she says. “And I’d never be able to do that if it weren’t for what UT has given me.”
The university’s choral ensembles—the Chamber Singers, Concert Choir, Men’s Chorale, Women’s Chorale, and UT Singers—are open to any student who auditions. No one is turned away; every student is assigned to one of the five groups. By design, the ensembles feature music students as well as novices and others from a wide range of academic majors. “So a first-time choir member might end up sitting next to someone who aspires to sing with the Metropolitan Opera,” says Angie Batey, director of choral activities in UT’s School of Music.
The Chamber Singers practice twice weekly and perform at least two major concerts a semester. Every year, the School of Music hosts a choral arts concert, inviting choirs from high schools across East Tennessee to perform. That’s how Kitts was first exposed to the group, deciding right then that she would find a way to join them one day.
Over the years, the Chamber Singers have performed Hannukah and Christmas songs, traditional African American spirituals, and Tennessee folk music in addition to the traditional centuries-old music for which choral ensembles are best known. In 2007, Batey took the group to New York City to sing at Carnegie Hall. The trip coincided with the city’s National Puerto Rican Day Parade—a cultural experience they hadn’t planned for, but one that the students welcomed with glee.
“That sparked an idea,” says Batey, who is also the director of graduate studies in music and associate dean of diversity and inclusion in the College of Arts and Sciences.
She began planning international exchange trips that would allow the Chamber Singers to perform in historic venues while experiencing cultures outside the Southeast. In total, 270 students have performed with the Chamber Singers in New York, Ireland (2012 and 2018), England (2015, 2022), and Scotland (2022).
The trips are among the students’ best memories of college.
“We got to sing in places where the Queen had her jubilee celebration, where the Duke of Edinburgh had his funeral,” says Paul Davis III, a senior vocal education major from Oakdale, Tennessee, in rural Morgan County. “Especially at Westminster Abbey, it felt like we were in a sacred place.”
While a student at Roane State Community College, Davis met Batey through his former voice teacher. She gave him the opportunity to sing Handel’s Messiah with the Chamber Singers before he transferred to the university. “I knew then how challenging it was but how much of a family environment Dr. Batey had created. She has a high standard. But you get all the tools you’ll need to succeed.”
In the UK this summer, the Chamber Singers performed for about 50 people at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Edinburgh, at least 200 at Westminster Abbey, and nearly 300 at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London.
“Experiencing for the first time the acoustics of St. Paul’s—there’s this moment when you stop singing and the sound lasts for seven seconds,” says Davis. “Hearing it last for that long—it was like an out-of-body religious experience.”
During the performance at St. Paul’s, Kitts glanced over at her fellow singers and saw tears streaming down their faces. “That’s how intimate the moment was,” she says. “And it wasn’t only touching us, it was touching the people we were singing to.”
The School of Music hosts eight active student organizations, including groups for future teachers, string players, and conductors. Kitts is a member of a group for women in music. Davis served as both a student ambassador and assistant director of UT Singers. He graduates in December and expects to pursue a master’s in choral conducting.
Through her four years as a music student at the university and a member of the Chamber Singers, Kitts has taken this lesson: if you chase the opportunity UT gives you, you’ll come out for the better on the other side.
“I was this very shy, reserved person when I first showed up on campus,” she says. “Now I can talk to anyone. And it’s not just that I’ve gotten older. It’s the people here—my peers, my professors, and all of these performances that have made me grow more confidence than I ever could have imagined.”
The Chamber Singers’ next trip is expected to take place in Europe in 2025.