Mar
8
LAUSD District Choral Festival 3/8-3/9/10
Filed Under Community News, Education & Schools, Inspiration, Local events
[Ed Note: JM still, Dave will be back posting tomorrow]
On Monday and Tuesday night at 7PM all the choirs from all the programs at the LAUSD will be joining together for the yearly festival at the LAHS Gym. Doors open at 6:30PM, and this always sells out for both nights (a very packed house).
This is really something to behold. Every Elementary School is there. Both the Middle Schools are there with all their Choral groups. And of course the award winning LAHS Choral groups are all there. It is low cost excellent entertainment (great value for the money), the money raised goes back into the LAUSD Choral program and you get to hear some of the best choral in all of Southern California.
Now, some may say that I am a bit biased since my daughter has been doing this from the time she was able to in 4th grade at Weaver and now she sings in SoundTrax (Advanced Woman’s Choir at LAHS), but this weekend at FAME LA the Xtreme’s (Men’s choir at LAHS) took First Place, so if I’m biased, so are the judges at these competitions.
David Moellenkamp (The Director), Eddy Clement, (Asst. Music Director and Accompanist), Heather Hoppus (Choreographer), and the Choir and Music teachers from the Middle and Elementary schools have put together an excellent program with a bunch of exceptionally talented students. It promises to be an excellent evening of entertainment filled with moments of joy and delight (and not just for the parents and family who have students performing).
You all may disagree with me on what I feel is best for Los Al, and my opinions on our political leaders, but in this one instance, take my advice and don’t miss one of these two evenings of pure musical delight.
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OUTSTANDING performances both nights. Hope other readers of the blog were able to make it.
While Los Al was having Poe’s Party, students for the Los Alamitos High School SoundtraX and SoundFX choirs went to Nashville, TN where they competed in the Show Choir Nationals.
On Thursday night The SoundtraX Advanced Women’s Ensemble brought the Grand Ole Opry audience to absolute silence with a absolutely perfect A Capella rendition of Bring Him Home. After completing this piece which is at about the halfway point of their competition set there was about 5-10 seconds of absolute silence before the crowd burst into thunderous applause. Around me I could see more than one person with either tears on their cheeks or very wet eyes, and this was from people that were not involved with the LAHS program, but parents of competing choirs.
They then went on to rock the house with the rest of their numbers, closing with Battlefield, but the A Capella was the topper for the show. Never before had they sung it so perfect, the last note hanging there and the eerie silence that followed as everyone waited for it to finally drift off before acknowledging the perfection of the presentation. Their just reward for such a fantastic performance was to be named the Grand Champion in the Women’s Division. First Runner up was Fairfield High School from Fairfield Ohio and the second runner up was Burbank High School (yes, Burbank from just north of here).
Next came the Advanced Mixed preliminaries. 14 show choir groups performed and that was narrowed down to six finalists. SoundFX had a technical malfunction during the preliminaries that caused many of the parents supporting the choir concern. During their A Capella piece, called Firefly there is at the start and then end a soloist portion. When the soloist started her portion her mike was not live and she couldn’t be heard. This caused, from my point of view in the audience, a bit of a problem for the students and they did not do as well on the piece as I had seen them do before. They did recover from that and Let the Sunshine In and Revolution were both excellent. In spite of the technical issue and how that seemed to throw them off, on Friday they did win enough in the judges opinions to be invited back as one of the six finalists.
Saturday was a nervous morning as SoundFX was scheduled to perform right after Burbank (there is a little bit of a rivalry there). But unlike the technical issues of the day before, this time everything worked fine and their A Capella was outstanding, one of the best, if not the best I have ever heard then do of firefly. And as they finished Revolution and moved into the final close of two courus’s of Let the Sunshine In the entire house (almost everyone in the audience, even other performing groups) was standing, clapping their hands and signing along with SoundFX. The day drew to a close as the winners were announced in reverse order. Three schools had been announced already, and three were waiting, Fairfield, Burbank and Los Al. Third runner up was Fairfield. Now it was down to the two California schools.One was going to be First Runner Up, the other Grand Champion. The tension was so thick you could cut it with a knife. Then they announced that the First Runner Up was… Burbank. It seemed to almost take five seconds before the house totally rocked with screaming as it was clear that LAHS SoundFX was the Grand Champion.
Burbank had come in second behind Burroughs at the Diamond Bar on 2/5. They took first at LAHS Xtravaganza ahead of Burroughs and at Hart in the only time LAHS SoundFX had completed with them Burbank took first, Burroughs was second and we were third.
The next time all three of these show choirs will be on stage together again is the SoCal Performance Show Choir Invitational 2010 on April 17th, 2010 in San Diego.
Kudo’s to David Moellenkamp the Director. And also to Heather Hoppus the Choreographer (both SoundtraX and SoundFX won awards for best Choreography) and Diane Fernandez (The Crew also won awards for their excellent work). And finally to the young mn and women who participate in LAHS Show Choir and bring the best they can be to each and every performance. What an outstanding team.