Wilkes University’s Choral director, Steven Thomas, has been working with his students and other choral directors from local universities to prepare for a performance at the Scranton Cultural Center with a professional orchestra.

The students will be singing Beethoven’s 9th Symphony April 25 at the Scranton Cultural Center with the Northeastern Pennsylvania Philharmonic. Thomas will be chorus master and Lawrence Loh, music director of the Philharmonic, will be conducting the concert.

“It’s a really exciting project,” Thomas said. “We’re combining with choirs from Bloomsburg University, from Marywood University and the Choral Society of Northeastern Pennsylvania, so all the singers are going to come together and sing the piece.”

Saturday, April 5, was the first rehearsal that included all 150 singers from the different groups, as well as Lou.

“It was a lot of fun,” Kelly Pleva, a member of the Wilkes University Chorus, said. “We worked really hard, it was a three and some odd hour rehearsal, and then we only have one more group rehearsal left together before the whole show.”

“It’s a little bit of a tricky thing to assemble because we’re all doing our own thing,” Thomas said. “Each group is used to singing with that group but not with the other groups, so we have to figure all that out.”

This is the fifth time Wilkes University has collaborated with the Northeastern Pennsylvania Philharmonic in the past 11 years.

“It’s roughly a pace of one every other year so it’s exciting, and for the students that are junior and seniors this is their second shot at it,” Thomas said.