All choirs have spent the second half of March and first half of April learning music for our Spring concert, on Tuesday, May 24th, at 7:00pm in the PAC. The theme for the concert is "A River's Journey," which highlights parallels between a river's path and the human journey on this earth.
Mustang Chorale/Beginning Choir are learning a few songs on their own and also some that will be performed jointly with Varsity Singers/Advanced Choir. Joint songs are Afton Water, (Irish) Blessing, and One Life Can Make a Difference.
Varsity Singers/Advanced Choir have concentrated so far on the three songs to perform in Anaheim April 9th. Some songs seem initially as if they're not very complicated to learn, but there are many layers of musical technique to encounter and master to arrive at a musically rich performance.
An intrepid group of 19 (0f 30) Varsity Singers performed very well on the day of the Heritage festival at 9:00am, and earned an average score of 88 from the three adjudicators, for a silver award, and First Place in their category!! They sang Weep O Mine Eyes (Renaissance), Alma Llanera (Venezuelan folk song), and Shenandoah (American folk song). During the rest of the morning and early afternoon, we all watched and listened to performances by Pioneer's Wind Ensemble, Jazz Band, and Orchestra. And I managed to hear a few other choir performances between events in our schedule. Afterward, around 3:30pm, the whole group of students bused over to Disneyland where we had time to ride rides and see shows, and in the evening attend the awards ceremony in the stupendous Hyperion Theater. Sunday all day was dedicated to Disneyland. The students seemed to have a lot of fun, even though some were definitely tired out at the end of each day. Other than small things lost (some found) and a couple minor things here and there, to be expected, the trip was thankfully uneventful from mishaps. Everyone arrived home safe and sound and in good time. A huge THANK YOU to the parents and students who raised money to go on the trip. It is an experience I will never forget! In a good way! :) I feel that the choir students' behavior was excellent, and I'm extremely proud of them for performing as well as they did. Another even HUGER THHHAAANNNKKKK YYYOOOUUU to the parents who chaperoned. They were a wonderful group of easy-going people, all with the students' safety and musical aims as primary concerns.
Women's Choir is learning two songs to sing by themselves at our Spring concert, Button Up Your Overcoat and Dance on My Heart. They sound very good and are realizing that they should all come to all rehearsals. :) They voluntarily now meet twice a week at lunch. One of their songs is from the 1920's and fits in with a unit in junior English on The Great Gatsby, which they will be able to participate in, thanks to Mr. Peterson.
Men's Choir is learning a gorgeous arrangement of the folk song, "Down in the Valley." There were a few male students committed to performing Men's literature, but not enough to cover parts more than one person per part. So I invited the faculty men to join us. Mr. Shull enthusiastically signed on and several others are gradually coming around. They are currently meeting Wednesdays at lunch and/or after school.
Esquire did not perform at our Valentine concert because of multiple absences, so they will have at least three songs in the Spring Concert: That Ever I Saw, In My Life, and Cloudburst, which has a difficult sung/spoken solo.
CST/Star testing makes our schedules block schedules Tue-Fri for the next two weeks of April. Mondays are the regular S-period schedules. This makes planning rehearsals more challenging, but I like longer periods for concentrated music learning, so it's not a problem for me. The only issue is I see each class only every other day, instead of every day.
More next time...
