001[Applause] good evening everybody it's so nice to see so many people here I'm sorry it's very mugy I can see people so welcome to our 2024 Spring Concert I'm very grateful that you could all join us tonight um if you were here in the winter you know that this year I have some pretty enormous but amazing choirs um they've been working really hard on all of the repertoire for the past four months and I know that they're really eager to show off all their hard work so the way this works is We Begin each concert with our sixth graders followed by seventh grade 8ighth grade and then new this year our after school choir the Red Eagles choir uh the first piece that is sung by our sixth graders is one that I have always
002imagined being sung by a group of young sers I tried it out with previous groups and it just didn't click it really did with this group now This song reminds me as I'm sure it will many of you of my childhood although it wasn't until I reached adulthood that I fully grasped the message behind it it's a message that I think resonates with this particular age group it's one about finding your intuition to guide you through life's decisions and to ultimately find your true life's calling [Music] R the rain [Music] the Dre [Music] look what is done so [Music] all we know that [Music] you [Music] many [Music] thank you so our next piece takes on a little bit of a darker tone um this song was suggested to me by a couple of my
003students apparently they sang in fourth grade fifth grade with Mrs Miner and um I really liked it when I heard it uh it features some of the imitative qualities of songs that are sung in What's called Canon form as many students sing in the general music course Elementary School you you probably all did the same thing in school row R row your boat forever Jaa that kind of stuff however the phrasing for this particular piece um gives it a little bit more of a sophisticated sense of musicality the message is that of recognizing that there are people in the world that need our love and empathy and and the song ends with a feeling of hopefulness the song is called the [Music] clouds falling from the down tear te [Music] and [Music] [Laughter] [Music] never
004[Music] okay now I'd like to invite our seventh graders up on the stage while they're lining up um I haven't been able to mix grade levels in a piece since I guess it was the end of last year because of just the the sheer capacity of choir students that I have being able to fit them all up here without being on top of one another that said um I knew I wanted to do this next piece but I also knew that it would take a very large number of voices to do it justice and I couldn't think of anybody better to take the energy up a notch than my seventh grade choir um I always like to add a Disney piece into my concerts because why not and this one is from the film percules
005please welcome our first soloist of the evening sixth grader Avery Driscoll [Applause] [Music] the [Music] I'll [Music] [Applause] [Music] and thous years would be wor the way and my take [Music] I I the my journey is [Music] will world will I don't I Can Go the Distance but I the distance of where [Music] I thank you so much let's hear it for our sixth graders right good job guys theyve come a very long way to here coming in as you know elementary school kids and I said nope this is how choir works and they just they just did it you know there we go okay so our first uh seventh grade piece is one that we've been working on since the beginning of the semester this is a sizable group and a very um energetic
006group so singing with enthusiasm and power is one of their strengths um however I think that it's really important for vocalists to learn how to use their instruments in a lot of different capacities so I chose this piece for its lullabi like feel and it was a challenge for them it challenges them to use a more nuanced and controlled singing voice the text for this piece is from a Native American song and it depicts someone comparing their affection for another to the beauty of the natural world around us please enjoy Shon love song [Music] the tlight [Music] is the white star [Music] and is is my heart [Music] is the [Music] Starlight is the white star Twilight [Music] my [Music] heart is is here Earth my heart [Music] so uh staying along the lines of
007traditional American Music our next piece incorporates not just one but two American spirituals the spiritual over my head dates back to through the 19th century but it is of unknown authorship actually I I tried to search this all over the Internet and found nothing alternate liyrics to it were written by civil rights leader Bernice Johnson Regan in 1961 and the re-envisioned lyrics instead of over my head I hear music in the air she thought of it as over my head I see freedom in the air and in 1995 the National Association of music education which I am required to be a member of published a list of songs that every American should know and over my head was on the list of course uh in this Arrangement it is intertwined with the hle I've got
008peace like a river my I in the over my [Music] I got like Riv in my soul my head somewhere my head my head somewhere my head [Music] there must [Music] be thank you so much okay uh now for our Pop Song of the night choosing a pop piece for choir is really difficult the kids always give me suggestions and I'm like yeah that sounds like a good one and then I listen to the choir arrangement of it I'm like no this isn't going to work um it's really hard because a lot of pop music does not always translate well into Coral music um this arrangement though I thought was really fun and uh I don't think I've had a single student in this group who didn't pretty much know it by heart right off
009the beat however the challenge is that we have to count rhythms and learn harmonies and we don't just sing what we hear on the radio so it forces them to kind of explore the song on a deeper level so this piece was uh originally recorded by the group One Republic and was released back in 2014 the idea for the song came a few years before it was released uh it was written by composer Ryan tedar who at the time was working alongside Jay-Z and Beyonce now if this was 2013 I'm going to assume he was probably working on Halo which he composed so when he was working on Halo he composed the song alongside of it and through his research he stumbled upon several pieces of uh inspiration for this song which is called Counting
010Stars and it carries the message that money cannot abide happiness [Music] will [Music] everything that KS me [Music] dreaming about the that we could [Music] but could [Music] beening about the things we could be but maybe I been been say no more [Music] thank you so much let's here for our seventh graders theyve worked so hard this year so now while they're leaving and everyone else is changing um I would like to welcome my AE choir stage by the time my students get to a choir um they more fully understand what to expect of a singing Ensemble they understand music rudiments and they're ready to be a little bit more challenged now sometimes that means um singing music that is a little bit more technically demanding sometimes it means making the shift from singing in
011a group setting to singing solo going on up guys um um and there's a very large portion of students on this stage tonight here who I've had the pleasure of working with throughout their entire Middle School career starting from sixth grade and the growth that I have seen them make is just absolutely tremendous like it's unbelievable they came into me as little little kids and I they're they're adults now it's crazy um so I would like for us to just honor them with an enormous Round of Applause [Music] so our first piece that we're singing tonight is one of my very favorite songs it is a staple Ballad of the American folk and rock music Cannon and it holds deep meaning this piece was composed by John Lennon and Paul McCartney recorded by McCartney and
012it was most recently recorded by none other than Beyonce its lyrics are inspired by the Civil Rights mov M of the 1960s and its message is still very resonant please enjoy blackbird [Music] all you love you waiting for this to [Music] ar oh you are you waiting for this moment to be free [Music] for [Music] you [Music] thank you uh so our next piece is the one that I think we had the most fun learning this year I they always ask to sing it during every class um uh it's musically more simplistic than some of our other pieces but one that I would tend to hear them sitting to themselves in the classroom long after instruction time was over the lyrics are based off the biblical story of Ezekiel and his vision of the four
013wheels or four Spirits yes sir um it is sung in pipany which means that at parts of the song each voice part is singing their own phrase and I think that's what's the most fun to sing uh this required each of these singers to have really good sharp Instinct and their their understanding of their own Rhythm Tempo and meter and more importantly to really listen to one another as an ensemble [Music] little [Music] the [Music] [Applause] [Music] m [Music] in mle of the [Music] you [Music] thank you so much um our next song If you have been coming to see these concerts for a while you know that I have to add something Latin in um something sung in the language of Latin uh every time I introduce a song like this the group is
014always just like the tinest bit disgruntled they're like really this D I don't speak Latin um but I asked them to tackle another language every time and I'm so proud of how well they do with it and they've developed a lot with one I explained to them that as far as song form goes that this song is very similar to a song We sang in our Winter concert called Shen and do which they've been obsessed with they they still want to sing it and like shannond do and little wheela Turnin this song employs that um same Pony component at times of each voice part having their own phrases uh so please enjoy anahaw [Music] for Lo whatever [Music] whoes for J [Music] the [Music] of [Music] yes we love that bo uh our final eighth
015grade piece is another that I've always wanted to have a choir sing and just like the song Blackbird it is a classic title of the 1960s and most importantly it conveys a message of companionship and loyalty that I sincerely hope follows my wonderful eth graders into high school with them next year and all the way through adulthood um I'm going to miss you guys so much I'm I'm saying that as a face away from you but I'm going to miss you guys so much please welcome our soloist Jana Milo Torres [Applause] [Music] time and the is and only [Music] to the Sea i w [Music] stand [Music] stand [Music] by oh stand by by by [Music] and let's our graders so [Applause] [Music] of our last group to sing with us tonight is our um
016our somewhat brand new Red Eagles choir who have only sung in one concert so far and that was our winter concerts um make sure com they should be from the back or from the side I don't know we might have a traffic jam here folks they're all coming in and out of the same hallway this might take a hot second um anyway this group uh has been meeting after school on Thursdays through a really good portion of the school year some of them are choir members in my other uh regular rostered classes and some of them are are unable to be in my class but they can participate here um there are people that play in band or in Orchestra and they're not able to actually be in my choir class but they there they
017are come on up guys um they are um but they are able to participate here um we have missed over two entire months of rehearsals due to my commitment with our spring musical Beauty and the Beast I don't know if anybody saw that one um so I am particularly Blown Away by how well they've learned it with like literally a 10 we learning Gap in the middle we learned a couple of things after the Winter concert I said bye for two and a half months and then we just jumped right back into it and they have it down okay so our first piece that we're singing um everyone was very excited to sing this piece uh you're all going to know it in The Superficial and surface environments of the plot of the Barbie movie
018this piece by Billy ish encapsulates the uncertainty of finding one's purpose which I think is something that is really relevant for young people as they're on the verge of adulthood this one they took to right away and they seem to understand each lyric as if they had written at that's the beauty of the SES they're beginning to understand life on a much deeper level and what better way to encourage that growth and with music our soloists for what was I made for are Kieran newberger and Heather Davidson w [Music] was you look so turn out something [Music] you but I want to tr [Music] I'm all thejo I again what was I [Music] for but I want to tr [Music] I I'm [Music] I that's okay before our final piece of the evening I would
019like to give a few thank yous to many people who helped who helped to make our music performances at fiser possible first of all uh our District administration Dr Gentile Dr B Dr bogus and my supervisor Brock mland thank you to my building administrators uh Dr Hannah Mr sheetlock and Mr DWI thank you to my teacher who come and help me with this this is a lot of kids um thank you to all the district music faculty I'm always picking their brains I see you Anita um thank you so much uh to Mr silipo and miss trast my music colleagues here at fiser um thank you first of all let's get a gigantic Round of Applause for Mrs Beverly Donald she's absolute Pro an absolute icon I just give her music and she just makes
020m magic It's amazing And thank you all so much to parents and families thank you for coming to support I appreciate it thank you for encouraging your child to do this because this is really important whether they grow up to become a professional musician that's neither here nor there they work together as a group to create something and that's going to carry with them through the rest of their lives um our last piece for the night I was very reluctant to introduce to my students I felt it was a little bit too advanced um of course they proved me wrong this Arrangement is um based off of a song called Bandy which is a traditional appalation folk song roots in Irish folk music when I introduced that to them they were like are you serious
021um the lyrics range from fantasy tales about woodland animals to what I thought might have been a phonetic form of Gaelic but upon further investigation it turns out it's just giberish I've tried to decipher the lyrics with absolutely no love um it has been musically challenging to the point that some students have told me that they've had nightmares about the song I'm sorry regardless they the students as they say ate and left no crims [Music] Al [Music] above and [Music] [Applause] [Music] keep to [Music] to [Music] thank you so very much and uh I hope everybody has a wonderful show are ready on your