A recent Greene County High School graduate is taking his singing to another level in college.

Gavin Vander Linden is a 2024 GCHS graduate and is in his second year at Iowa State University where last school year, he performed with the Iowa State Singers. He tells Raccoon Valley Radio it is a 70-member mixed ensemble that he had to audition for, which he talks about the quality of the people that are in the group.

“So there’s a lot of people in there who are like music education or vocal performance majors that’s what they’re doing in college, full time. They’re just working on becoming better singers, better musicians all the time. So it’s a little bit, I don’t want to say intimidating, but it’s like a challenging prospect to just be around those people who are doing music as their job or want to. And they’re just amazing everyone in the choir is just amazing!”    

Vander Linden points out that they went to Dallas, Texas as part of the National American Choral Directors Association, which colleges are only eligible to go every four years, along with a performance in New York City with the Manhattan Concert Productions. There was even a reunion concert where he shared the same stage with ISU alumni and Greene County High School Choir Director David Heupel. He expresses that both trips had their moment, but he describes one of his favorite shows from last year.

“The ‘Carmina Burana’ with the Des Moines Choral Society and the Des Moines Symphony show was just really awesome. If you haven’t listened to the piece before, it’s an hour long, so you know what you’re getting yourself into, but you should give it a listen. It’s really cool, like epic symphony work.”

Vander Linden notes that he also earned a college credit as well, having regular class time from noon-1pm Monday-Friday. He admits that the first semester was not too difficult to balance being part of the Iowa State Singers and his classload, but the second semester was when a majority of the performances were done in 1.5 months. The ensemble is led by Dr. James Rodde and Vander Linden adds that he is looking forward to continuing with them as he enters his second year at ISU majoring in computer science.