From Artistic Director Cindy Johnston:

I retired in 2019 after teaching in McKinney ISD for 23 years at all levels, and my last stint was at McKinney High School as Head Director of Choirs and Team Lead for Secondary Vocal Music. Feeling a desire to continue creating moments in choral music and partnering with my son, Seth Johnston, I  embarked on a quest to provide an avenue for vocalists in North Texas through a McKinney area choir.  There had been a chorus in McKinney some years before, Collin County Community Choir, but that group migrated to Sherman under a new name.  I saw a need  for singers who longed to perform repertoire that challenged them to bring high quality choral music and concerts to our hometown.  Seth and I started meeting with First McKinney staff as to the possibilities, and an alliance was formed.  Word went out over social media, emails, and word of mouth.  In January of 2020, Choral Community of North Texas began rehearsing with over 60 voices.  And then….. Covid…. We paused at the end of February.  We resumed in August of 2021 and chose Sostenuto Choral Community of North Texas as a fitting title for who we are and what we desired to do. 

Successfully restarting the choir after Covid is a testament to the resiliency of our members.  They so wanted to make this choir thing happen.  We rocked along successfully for two years, adding new voices to our membership.  This strength was put to test again when in early August of 2023, I was diagnosed with lung cancer in an incidental finding at a local ER. Looking for a path forward, I found that UT Southwestern’s lung clinic could not see me for 3 weeks.  My physician daughter was practicing in Akron, Ohio, at the time, and she was able to get me into their lung clinic that same week. I hopped on a plane, and after several specialist visits, 16 days after finding the cancerous 2.5 cm nodule, the upper left lobe of my lung was removed, the cancer gone.  Thankfully, I did not need chemo or radiation.  This might have been a difficult scenario for Sostenuto as this transpired just before our resumption of rehearsal for the season.  But the members pulled together under the leadership of Debra Morton, our insanely brilliant accompanist and composer in residence. The semester started on schedule and dove into our major work for Christmas, Gloria, by renowned British composer John Rutter.  I returned to the conductor’s stand a month later.  Talk about living up to the core meaning of our name.  Sostenuto sustained each other and me through a very challenging moment in time.