By Anna Matson, staff writer
More than 1,100 choral students, grades 5 through 12, performed last month at Kenosha Unified School District’s 50th annual Choral Festival at Bradford High School.
This year’s guest conductor was Brad Holmes, director of choir programs at Milikin University in Decatur, Ill. Holmes said it was “an honor and an exciting privilege” to be the guest conductor for this performance.
“The students were very responsive and talented. Those two elements are not often combined,” said Holmes. “Many times very talented students are not as open to new ideas and thoughts.”
Choir directors from each school had to spend lots of rehearsal time to get these songs performance ready.
“We spent nearly two-and-a-half months preparing for this performance,” said Jon Choi, Indian Trail Choir Director. “Teaching the music is a challenge because of the different kind of preparation needed.”
The student singers thought the solo piece was the most challenging.
“The hardest thing about this performance is the solo piece because it’s the choir’s way of trying to show everyone what you can do,” said Andrea Johnson, Indian Trail senior.
The hardest part was being mixed up for our solo performance and not standing with our parts, said Sage Holloway, Indian Trail junior. We really had to understand and know the music since we seem to be a pretty small group in the Bradford field house.
The schools coming together for this event help unite the community.
The students get to hear the different groups and support one another, said Choi. ”We get to hear the good things that are going on at the other schools. We also get to sing for our incoming students to get them excited about being a part of the Indian Trail Choirs.”
The concert was concluded with the piece “One More Reason To Sing,” which was written by Gregory Berg, vocal professor at Carthage College, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the KUSD Choral Festival.
The piece was Holmes’ favorite of the performance since it was written for the occasion.
“I was glad to be a part of creating a new piece heard for the first time,” said Holmes.