May Choir Notes

Upcoming Events:

• Friday, May 12: Choir Council applications due
• Tuesday, May 16: Tartanfest (get your Sing to Serve done by attending for 1 hour and writing a 1 page paper about your experience!).  Here is the link to the facebook invite- share it with family and friends! https://www.facebook.com/events/680978525419354/
• Friday, May 19: Deadline to pay for banquet dinner tickets on myschoolfees.com under music-vocal. It's $3 per person.  You will pick up your tickets at the door.
• Tuesday, May 23rd: Choir Banquet, Disney themed!
• 5:30-6:30- taco dinner and musical entertainment + introduction of new choir council (optional for students and families)
• 6:30-7:00- Slideshow in the auditorium (we will show it twice as people filter in)
• 7:00-8:30- Concert and senior recognition (required concert for students)

Upcoming Assignments Due:

• Sing to Serve due Friday May 19th.  Do a musical service (going to Tartanfest and supporting the arts counts!) and write a one page paper, typed and double spaced, about your experience.
• Concert Reports due Thursday, May 25th.  Concert Choir and Women's Choir should have already done theirs at their festival.  Men's Ensemble, here are a couple ideas for yours! 1) You can attend the HHS band/orchestra concert at the end of the year (unless you're in it) or see a free concert/rehearsal in the tabernacle on Temple Square.  The choir I'm in rehearses there Thursday nights at 7:30 and has a broadcast at 9:30 a.m on Sundays.

Year in Review:

It has been such a fun year- these choir students are out of this world and have accomplished SO much!  Let's look back at a few things choir students have done this year! NONE of these things would have been possible without enormous support from parents- a huge shout out to all our moms, dads, grandparents, and other family members who have supported the choir students in hundreds of ways to help them develop their talents.  (If you are interested in seeing some pictures and videos accompanying these events, check out our instagram, highlandhighschoolchoir.)

• Choir Council made a music video to the "Friends" theme song to welcome all the kids to choir in the fall!
• Students in all classes performed a song of their choice either in small groups or as a soloist for in-class performances during term 1.  It's fun to see the diversity in their musical tastes! We certainly were blown away by students who we don't get to hear sing solo very often!
• Choir Council hosted an opening social playing, "Don't Forget the Lyrics!"
• Students celebrated music from the British isles during their first concert for our fall dessert fundraiser. Parents worked hard to make it such a lovely event.
• Men's Ensemble won the choir class competition and chose a class party consisting of bacon and chocolate chip pancakes.
• We raised over $8,000 for choir tour at our mattress fundraiser with the band and orchestra!
• Students had "Secret Santas" during the holidays and made other choir kids feel loved by leaving them treats and notes.  
• Students created their own holiday raps in small groups.  
• At the holidays, students collaborated with the HHS orchestra to sing/play a few pieces at our winter concert, including our traditional, "Candlelight Carol."
• Madrigals celebrated their many, many holiday performances (including a visit to the nursing home of Paul Christensen, former choir teacher at HHS, and to my Grandmother's assisted living facility!) with a Noodles and Co. lunch.
• Dozens of choir students joined together to do a caroling "Sing to Serve" in the neighborhoods of HHS, hosted by the Choir Council.  
• Women's choir won the choir class competition and had a waffle/bacon party that almost didn't make it due to power outages.  Thanks to two very special parents, everyone got fed before the bell rang!
• A quartet of madrigals were invited to perform the Star Spangled Banner at the capital for a naturalization ceremony.
• Students took a theory final testing the skills they worked on over the semester on note names, rhythms, and music vocabulary. 
• Men's and Women's choir reps organized getting T-shirts for their choirs to help promote unity!
• A quartet of boys from Concert Choir and Madrigals sang the national anthem at a big swim meet.
• Many choir students participated in the school wide talent assembly, including the winner!
• Men's Ensemble performed in their first choir festival at Bonneville High School and did a FABULOUS job! 
• Concert Choir won the class choir competition and had a chips/dip party. 
• Students prepared a festival appropriate piece to perform in class for their second in-class performance.  For many of them, this meant going outside their comfort zone and singing a style they never had before.  
• Hosted by the Choir Council, students wrote Valentine's for each other across the choirs.  
• Madrigals had an amazing workshop with Barlow Bradford from the U of U to prepare for festival.
• The Madrigals and many other choir members performed at region solo and ensemble.  The Madrigals qualified for state as a chamber choir and we had 4 soloists and 3 female ensembles qualify for state as well, which was so exciting and an increase from past years!
• Our March concert featured all our festival music, with a bonus "O Brother Where Art Thou" song from the men!
• The Choir Council hosted a spring social watching, "The Emperor's New Groove" and eating lots of good food.
• The Women's Choir participated in a festival at the University of Utah with 12 other schools.  They worked with Jean Applonie (BYU), Cherilyn Worthen (UVU), and Jessica Napoles (U of U) and performed in a joint recital at the Libby Gardner Recital Hall. They did SUCH a beautiful job!
•  Close to 70 choir students from all four choir classes went on tour to Seattle, Washington. They did a workshop with Dr. Boers at the U of W and performed as a tour choir at the Heritage music festival, earning a silver rating. They did such a good job, especially having only rehearsed all together a couple times! The madrigals also performed as a chamber choir and earned a gold rating. 
• The Concert Choir and Madrigals joined together to perform at the Large Choir Region Festival at Bountiful High School.  They made a huge improvement in scores from past years, scoring I- (superior minus) from all three judges. 
• The Men's Ensemble, Women's Choir, and Concert Choir created original mash-ups and performed them for the class. I was completely overwhelmed by their talents- they were so creative. 
• Madrigals performed at state as well as the state qualifiers. The performances were all so beautiful! Two of our soloists received medals for a superior rating from the judges. 
• Students brought in a presentation on a favorite song.  It is always so cool to get exposed to an enormous variety of music, especially considering the enormous variety of personalities and backgrounds we have in our student body!

We can't wait for the banquet and hope it to be the cherry on top of a full year!