Choir Concert

This is just one third of our community choir.

Sometimes Brooke trades her jeans and cowboy boots for a skirt and dress shoes. :^D She is a girl of diverse interests, from competing in barrel races to singing in our local children's community choir. Tonight was the choir's end of year concert.

Actually, the choir is composed of three separate groups - apprentice choir (in the red shirts) are kindergarten to second grade. In addition to singing in Latin, Japanese, and, of course, English, they play different Orff instruments and the directors allow the children to come up with their own arrangements for the musical pieces. The kids do an exceptional job - especially being so young!

Brooke is second from the right on the back row

The chorus, the group Brooke is in, is a non-audition choir for third through ninth grades. This year, their only foreign language pieces were in Latin (my favorite was A Lyric Adoramus Te), but in the past, they have performed pieces in French, Spanish, Japanese, and Hebrew. This year's crowd favorite, however, was a folk piece called Deaf Old Woman. The boys would sing "old woman, old woman, will you do my washing/ironing/darning" and the old women, um, I mean girls would sing back, "Speak a little louder, dear, I'm very hard of hearing." Finally the boys got together and whispered for a while, then sang very quietly, "old woman, old woman, would you want to marry me?" and the girls would exclaim, "Lord have mercy on my soul, I hear you very clearly!" It was hilarious - especially since the boys really got into their part and used exaggerated motions and facial expressions. A great job!

Our "traveling choir" or chorale is an audition choir through 12th grade and they have won many awards and have sung all over the world. This summer, they will be performing in Austria. And you just can "sing pretty" for this choir - they test you on vocal quality and range,
ability to read rhythmic notation, ability to read melodic patterns in solfege, abitity to follow a musical score, ability to work efficiently in chorus rehearsals, conduct and dependability in chorus, and musical leadership in chorus. You have to be in chorus for at least one semester before you are allowed to audition for chorale.

We are very proud of our community choir. They are pretty impressive, especially coming from a little "hick town" in Louisiana. And we are very proud of our own little songbird. I hope Brooke continues with her singing - in addition to her horseback riding. She is a girl of many talents, for sure!