Visit our Past Seasons page for links to concert videos and programs!
The Middletown Community Chorus (MCC) is a non-audition chorus in the Middletown/Odessa/Townsend area. MCC is open to high school and adult singers at all levels of experience. We currently rehearse in the music room of Odessa High School on Thursday evenings, 7 – 9 PM.
MCC was formed in fall of 2022 as a successor to the Northern Delaware Oratorio Society, with Rocky Tejada as the Artistic Director. MCC had it first abbreviated season in the winter and spring of 2023, beginning rehearsals on February 2 2023 and culminating in the May 8 2023 concert “Celebration of Music”. Nick Ronaghan was MCC’s pianist for its first semester.
In 2023/2024, MCC had a full season with two concerts: “Schubert’s Mass in G” on January 25 2024 (rescheduled from December 2023 due to an outbreak of respiratory illnesses), and “A Time for Music” on May 19 2024 with student soloists from Middletown and Odessa High Schools. Collaborative Pianist Michelle Taylor joined MCC in the fall of 2023.
In 2024/2025, MCC held a mid-Winter Choral Festival on January 12th 2025 at Odessa High School, with guest choruses from Appoquinimink, Middletown and Odessa High Schools. The second concert of the season was “Jazz and Romance” presented on May 18th 2025 and featured solos and duets by MCC members in addition to choral settings of jazz classics. Michelle Taylor resigned as Collaborative Pianist at the end of the season and the MCC board searched over the summer, hiring Christopher L. Ponce for the position in August 2025.
In 2025/2025, MCC’s Winter concert “Walking in the Light”, originally scheduled for Sunday January 25th 2026 had to be rescheduled due to a major winter storm that swept through Delaware that weekend. We held the concert on Saturday February 14th (Valentine’s Day!) at St Paul’s UMC in Odessa, debuting Christopher Ponce as our Collaborative Pianist and providing a live-stream option for the first time. In the spring semester we switched to rehearsing at St Paul’s. In April, Rocky Tejada announced that he was moving to Spain for doctoral study in choral conducting in the summer of 2026, and we began a search for a new Artistic Director.