Award-winning a cappella Groups to Sing at Pilgrim Church

Three award-winning a cappella groups will sing in concert at Pilgrim Congregational Church on Sunday, April 7th at 5:00 pm. Highlands Voices, Highlands Belles and Highlands Harmonics, from Northern Highlands Regional High School, will sing a broad selection of contemporary a cappella music. They will be joined by the a cappella choir of the Green Brook Middle School. There will be a light reception after the concert. The concert is free and open to the public.

Highlands Voices is one of the premier high school a cappella ensembles in the country. They have competed in the International Championship of High School A Cappella's Regional Competition, winning the ICHSA Mid-Atlantic Champions from 2011 to 2016, as well as the national championship in 2014 and were the national convention winners in 2015. They will be joined by sister a cappella singing groups, the Highlands Belles, also an award –winning group, and Highlands Harmonics, the newest of the high school ensembles. All three ensembles competed in the ICHSA semi-final competition on March 23. Highlands Voices and Highlands Belles placed first and second respectively.

Highlands Voices competed on Lifetime’s “Pitch Slapped” in 2016. They are equally comfortable singing classical, jazz and contemporary a cappella music and have performed in Manhattan's Avery Fischer Hall and St. Patrick's Cathedral, the Hackensack Street Festival as well as festivals, concerts and competitions around the country. . Their director, Tom Paster, is also the music director at Pilgrim Congregational Church. Mr. Paster was recently honored to receive the 2019 New Jersey Master Music Teacher Award by the New Jersey Music Educators Association.

The public is invited to attend. No reservations are needed for the concert. The church is located at 105 Mountainview Road in Warren. For further information and directions, please call the church office at 908-903-0929 or visit the church’s website at www.pilgrimcongregationalchurch.org.

The Congregational denomination came to America with the Pilgrims on the Mayflower. Strong tenants of the faith are in education and in the belief in the individual’s freedom to worship God according to his or her own conscience. The Congregational churches are responsible for establishing and sustaining many prominent colleges, including Harvard, Yale, Amherst, Bowdoin, Carlton, Grinell, Dartmouth, Mount Holyoke, Oberlin, Pacific, Pomona, Smith and Wellesley, among many others.