Junior, Senior High choir, band large groups performing
The Mountain Lake Public School (MLHS) Music Department invites the public to the annual “Evening of Contest Music” presented on Monday, March 24 at 7 p.m. in the school’s auditorium. The program, showcasing each of the Junior High and Senior High choir and band large groups, will be an opportunity to hear music that the groups have prepared for contests and festivals.
The concert also is part of the many festivities that students have enjoyed as a part of “Music in our Schools Month,” including music trivia questions, COTY (Class of the Year) activities (such Can You Dance? and Name that Tune) and dress-up days. These fun additions to March have been spear-headed by music instructor and choir director Andrea Brinkman and the members of the Haydn to Hip-Hop class.
The concert will open with the Junior High Band and three pieces they will perform in Madelia on Thursday, April 10. “New Era Fanfare” is an exciting opener featuring the brass and percussion followed by the melodic and lyrical arrangement of the Irish folk tune, “Down by the Salley Gardens.” The band will finish with “American Celebration.”
The Junior High Choir will present “Music Speaks,” and “Jubilate Deo” before closing their portion with “Waka, Waka (This Time for Africa)” which was the official 2010 FIFA (Federation Internationale de Football Association) World Cup Song and translates as “Do it/Get the task done.”
Both the Senior High Choir and Band competed in the Sub-Section Large Group Contest on Wednesday, March 12 at Red Rock Central Public High School in Lamberton. The three adjudicators listened and scored the groups in eight different areas before awarding an overall rating for the group. Each group also received a brief clinic with one of the judges. Both groups received an overall rating of Superior (the highest rating) this year.
The Senior High Band will play its two contest pieces, “Epitaph,” a piece commissioned and dedicated to the memory of a classmate that students in the Villa Rica (Georgia) High School Band lost and “Havendance,” which was written by the composer with his daughter, Haven, in mind. Its driving rhythms are a reflection of the energy of an 8-year-old, who loved to dance and twirl around the house and dreamed of becoming a ballerina.
The Senior High Choir will close out the concert with pieces from the contest. “In Remembrance,” which was written in 2002 to commemorate the tragic accident that took a choral parent and his two daughters who were students in Tallahasee where the composer was Director of Choral Activities, and “Niska Banja,” a rhythmic Serbian Gypsy dance. They will also sing the Tanzanian vocal piece, “Ni Jani Gani,” and “Faithful Over a Few Things.”
