SINGING TO STATE

Chamber choir performs with combined All-State choir for annual state performance in Wichita

After months of preparation, the chamber choir performed for the Kansas Music Educators Association at Wichita with the entire All-State choir on Feb. 25.

Chamber choir first started practicing early in august because three of the songs they used in the KMEA performances were the songs students had to use to audition to get into All-State Choir.

“They’ve been working on those three since August and they found out in December if they made state or not, and then in January, we gave them the music for state and they prepared all on their own,” co-choir director Olivia Henning said.

They performed many pieces including “Lamentations of Jeremiah”, “All of You”, “Butterfly,” “Mainacht.” One of the songs was even written by one of the clinicians at the KMEA, Z. Randall Stroope.

“There was a really wide variety: from poems to coronation music, like Lamentations of Jeremiah. So it was a very

Story by Conrad Hill

diverse set of music that we did overall,” senior Jake Chun said.

In terms of their performance of those songs, they had a striking sound. According to Henning, there were 250 singers in each performance at once.

“It was an extremely powerful sound and a very big space,” Chun said. “I really enjoyed the music we did so overall, it was probably one of the best choir experiences I’ve ever had.”

All-State choir was very successful with the sound, passion and overall love for music. Junior Luca Osborn claimed they are looking forward to doing just as good in the future.

“It’s really cool to see all the people that are passionate about choir together,” Osborn said.