Shenango Valley Chorale will present its spring concert, "I'm Gonna Sing" at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at First United Methodist Church, Sharon, with Shenango Area Youth Chorus, and at 7:30 p.m. May 4 in Hickory High School auditorium with Hickory High School Chamber Singers.

"Going back to Hickory will be interesting," said Chorale Director Edgar S. Groves, who spent 36 years there as choral director and founded the chamber singing group.

"Several members of the Shenango Valley Chorale are former students of mine, and I was thinking about all those great musicians I had over the years who are now major league singers, directors, teachers and musicians," he said.

"When I went to Hickory, there was a high school choir and ninth-grade chorus. I started a little group called the Ensemble.

"Then we had so many good singers, I broke it up into Chamber Singers for seniors and the Ensemble for juniors, once in a while putting them together into a chorale. It will be fun to go back and direct the Chamber Singers again."

Julie Freeman, who sings in the chorale and was one of Grove's students at Grove City College, where he is a visiting lecturer, has been choral director at Hickory since 1998.

"It will be great for Ed to see how the program that he developed at Hickory is coming along, and great for the kids to see the teacher who started at all," Ms. Freeman said.

Ms. Freeman also is director of the SAY Chorus.

The program will feature selections from "Cats" and "Phantom of the Opera," pieces by Richard Rodgers, "I'm Gonna Sing" by Robert Hunter, the Robert Shaw-Alice Parker arrangement of "I'm Gonna Sing," and the black spiritual "Take My Mother Home."

The women singers will present "Velvet Shoes" by Randall Thompson, and "Memory" from "Cats," and the men will sing "I Bought Me a Cat," an Aaron Copland piece arranged by Irvine Fine.

The students groups will take the stage during the chorale's intermission, and join the chorale for "God Bless America."

The chorale will be accompanied by pianist Cynthia Brea Ward and organist Raymond Ocock.

Tickets: at the door.