Students at Leisure: Ilaria Merone ‘27SLP – Singing in the Choir

If you ask her parents, Ilaria Merone ‘27SLP started singing before she started properly forming sentences. Music was always something she gravitated toward as a kid.

“When there was music on, I would be up dancing and singing. It was always something that brought me so much joy,” she said.

And, music ended up being not only something that gave Merone a chance to see other parts of the world, it also presented the opportunity for her to connect with her Italian roots.

As soon as she could, Merone started singing in her school choir in third grade. At her school, there was a “little kids” choir for the younger children and a “big kids” choir for the older children. Merone’s goal was to sing in the “big kids” choir.

“I’ve been told that I have the heart of a singer and the heart of a musician that people love to watch. I love to translate emotion through song, through dance, through any kind of performance,” she said. “Not only has it been my outlet for expression throughout the years, but it’s also been the thing that I go to for comfort when life gets really tough.”

A first-generation American from Lansdale, Pennsylvania, with relatives still living in Naples, Italy, Merone was born in the U.S. but holds a dual citizenship in Italy as well. Her continued interest in singing eventually landed her a spot on the American Music Abroad Silver Tour of 2019, her junior year of high school, an international music tour that includes hand-selected students from different high schools throughout a geographic region. Merone’s group included students from Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Jersey and New York and featured a choir and an orchestra.

The tour included performances in three different cities in Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic. The final stop of the tour was in a small town just outside of Venice, Italy.

“I’ve been to Italy almost every summer since I was born,” said Merone. “What was nice about that stop was that the director of the tour had asked if I could introduce us in Italian. In the other stops, we had introduced ourselves in English. And, in the crowd, for that final show, was my aunt and my cousins. My aunt had never seen me perform live because she lives in Italy. She’d only seen me perform via video.”

With all of that musical background, one would think Merone might have pursued it as a career. But she had another love just as strong – working with multi-lingual people with disabilities.

After graduating from Eastern University in St. Davids, Delaware County, Pennsylvania, with a degree in Early Childhood Education – where she stayed connected with music by joining the worship team for Eastern University’s Delightful Ministries chapter - Merone tried to find a career path where she could grow in the world of education but someday expand outside that world. She chose speech-language pathology.

“I was going through a grad school magazine that listed a bunch of schools and career options, and speech-language pathology and Drexel were in that magazine,” said Merone. “That’s where my life took a turn. Very early on, Drexel was on my radar.”

As it turned out, when it came to actually pursuing a career, Merone’s interests changed and moved away from music.

“Growing up in an immigrant household, my parents always pushed us to focus on our education so that we could have an independent life and not have to do the hard work that they did to give us a good life,” said Merone. “And, I knew music was not going to give me an easy, carefree financial life. It’s a very aggressive and cutthroat career path and I think that would have taken  away from why I love it so much.”

Life in grad school is busy, but Merone still sings at church and to herself. She loves singing church songs, but more often than not, she said she finds herself singing Taylor Swift songs.

“Singing has now become just an outlet for finding self-expression and comfort,” said Merone.