Chorus

From Jan. 12-14, senior Aaron James, junior Dante Colorito and sophomore Claudia Huggins spent a weekend in Hermitage, Pennsylvania to participate in the Pennsylvania Music Educators Association (PMEA) District 5 Chorus Festival. These students were selected by Band Director Keith Kovalic to travel with him.

After arriving at Hickory High School, they were separated by voice types. Huggins went as a Soprano 1, Colorito went as a Tenor 1 and James went as a Bass 2. From there, they were given the opportunity to audition for regional chorus.

In each voice category, they received numbers indicating what they would go in for their auditions. Through each section, they were given the same five measures to sing for the judges. The audition was considered a blind audition, so the performers sang to the judges’ backs. After receiving the starting note, the singers sang their selected section and left the room for the next performer when they finished.

Due to the date of this year’s musical, all three Freedom singers had indicated before their auditions that they would not like to move on to regional chorus.

Huggins finished in front of seven other soprano singers, Colorito beat nine other tenors in his section and James took ninth place.

The concert took place on Jan. 14. They sang pieces including “Sure on this Shining Night,” “Aesop’s Fables,” “He is Marvelous” and “Hallelujah Amen.” A choral professor at Kansas State University, Dr. Julie Yu, was the guest conductor for the concert.

“My favorite part of the event was building friendships with kids from other schools because everyone has so much in common: musicals, interests and singing of course,” Colorito said of the benefits of attending an event like this.

Band

On Feb. 9, three students, seniors Kameron Mayhue, Nikki Kammer and Hannah Shumsky, traveled to Butler Intermediate High School to partake in the PMEA District 5 Band Festival that took place on Feb. 11. These students were given this opportunity after placing high enough in the audition that was held at Honors Band in December.

After arriving at Butler, they had an audition for Regional Band later that night. They had received music for their respective instruments, Mayhue on trumpet, Kammer on flute and Shumsky on clarinet, after the Honors Band concert. These auditions determined chair seating and regional eligibility.
During the audition, there were three judges who picked two excerpts of the songs that would be given to the players. After the music was selected, the players, based on section, got in line and played in front of the judges. The players were not allowed to talk and were playing to the backs of the judges. The seats depended on the scores from the rubrics the judges had. That evening, they found out that Mayhue placed third, Kammer placed third and Shumsky placed seventh.

After auditions, the 138-student band started rehearsal. The guest conductor for the event was Dr. Jonathan Helmick, who is the assistant professor of music at Slippery Rock University. He is also the director of the SRU Marching Pride, the wind ensemble, concert band and the tuba and euphonium ensemble.

“I really enjoyed working under him and even had the chance to introduce myself as a future student of Slippery Rock,” Kammer, who plans to major in Music Performance at SRU this fall, said of the opportunity to work with her future professor.

The next morning, all three players found out that they would advance to Region 1 Band on March 22-24 at Sharon High School. They received the music for the concert that will take place March 24. The rest of the day was spent rehearsing.

The concert took place on Saturday. The performed songs including “Ammerland,” “A Festival Prelude,” ”Lola Flores,” “Nathan Hale Trilogy,” “Persis” and “76 Trombones.”
After receiving the music at the conclusion of district band, all three musicians will be preparing for regionals.

“At regionals, I am mostly concerned about the audition, which leads to State Band. It is my goal to qualify for State Band for the third time in a row,” Mayhue, who participated in the State Wind Ensemble last year, said.