Bala Cynwyd Middle School is honoring choral teacher Bob Elias, who retired in June after 34 years leading the school's chorus program.

The Lower Merion School District published a tribute on Sept. 3 featuring a five-stanza poem written by fellow BCMS music teacher Anne Sterner-Porreca. Titled "The Legacy of Mr. Elias at BC," the poem captures what Elias meant to generations of students and staff at the Bala Cynwyd school.

"For years you stood before the choir / to kindle music and inspire," Sterner-Porreca wrote. "With sculpting ears and gentle grace / Dear Bob, you warmed our chorus space."

The poem traces Elias's career from building choral blend and tone to a final, unplanned farewell. One stanza describes an April performance that colleagues did not realize would be his last: "We did not know that April day / Would close your era in that way, / But every chord was pure and grand … "

Sterner-Porreca closed the poem with a line that speaks for the whole BCMS community: "Your timeless legacy will ring / Through every song we ever sing."

Photos published alongside the tribute show Elias conducting a student choir, playing piano, holding a frame drum and posing with flowers alongside a colleague. Thirty-four years of work, captured in a handful of images.

Bala Cynwyd Middle School (BCMS) serves 794 students in grades 5 through 8. The school offers General Music, Chorus, Band, Orchestra and an Advanced Choir. Sterner-Porreca, who directs the Advanced Choir, has continued leading the program since Elias's departure. In July, her choir performed a reworked version of "For Good" from the musical Wicked to honor departing assistant principals Nikki Wake and Dave Clark.

The district's music program has earned the Best Communities for Music Education designation from The NAMM Foundation 16 times, most recently in April 2026.

LMSD students in grades 1 through 12 return for the first day of the 2026–27 school year on Tuesday, Sept. 8.