McGovern, 30, an assistant to Graeme Cowan of Philadelphia's Singing City Choir and a music teacher in Philadelphia and South Jersey public schools, was anxious to start the rehearsal. Sopranos, altos, tenors and basses filed quickly into the wooden pews.
First, the tall, curly-haired director put his performers through warm-ups, as though they were about to compete in a track meet. Bends and stretches, head and shoulder rolls, and a facial massage helped erase the stress that could make a voice sound pinched.
Then McGovern led vocal exercises, to help each singer place his or her voice to produce the best tone.
Finally, from 7:30 to 9 p.m., the members of the new chorus sang, while McGovern, as meticulously as Riccardo Muti tuning the Philadelphia Orchestra, corrected notes, tempo, volume, tone and pronunciation.
"That's daugh-teh, not daugh-terrr," he said. "You never sing a final R."
He seemed pleased with one soft, quick line about a jilted suitor - but it needed to be twice as soft and twice as fast, and, over and over, they sang it until he was satisfied.
Along with the intensity, however, there were lighter moments.
McGovern bantered with a soprano who joked that she could "almost do the entire song on one breath."
He kidded with a tenor about the word dog, which many were pronouncing - as they might in McGovern's native Queens - as though it were spelled D-A-W-G. He teased an alto who was convinced that her B-natural, about a half-tone off, was correct.
"Ohhh," she said, comprehending, as accompanist Rebecca Carroll played the note on the piano.
At 9, the singers took a break; at 9:10, they were back in the pews, where they rehearsed for another hour.
