SHS Concert

We debuted our jazz band this fall in a concert on Friday night, November 18th, along with our combined choirs, orchestra and a new ensemble this year - our middle school choir.

The show moved along well, with each performing group allotted fifteen minutes onstage, including set up, tuning and performance. There were great moments by all of our groups, as well as opportunities to improve. Our jazz band is an example. This was a good moment for them, playing a rock song that they liked and would have some audience appeal as well. Oh that's me playing third trumpet, because we are very short handed this semester. In January three more senior kids join and that will beef up the sound back there greatly.

I'm so pleased with our rhythm section this year, made up of mostly juniors and seniors. Next year will be a challenge to grow that group from underclassmen, so we'd better do all that we can to enjoy their work and dedication to the band.

Our choirs have been growing musically as well; they sang some serious literature this fall that demanded much from them in terms of phrasing, diction and pitch, to say nothing of vocal projection over medium to soft dynamic levels - very tough for students at this level, but they pulled it off.

This concert was billed as the Winter Arts Concert, even though it came this year before Thanksgiving. We deliberately did this in order to free up the December auditorium schedule for all of the other district music programs. We are growing, with another high school sharing this space as well as more robust music programs in our existing schools. We all use the district auditorium, requiring a booking of dates a year before. We're already looking at planning for Winter 2012, and that's a new phenomenon for us.