By: Aidan Hatch
Although COVID-19 has prevented students from attending school physically, the RHS choral program has not stopped working to give students the opportunity to perform their talents and musical abilities for the rest of the school year.
“We’re going to try and do a couple of virtual concerts,” says Mr. Carrillo, the Choir Teacher, and Director at RHS. He hopes to perform at least two concerts, placing “one in October and one in December”, before the end of this semester.
Right now Carrillo is still working on the process of building up to the concert. His students have been learning arias and other choral pieces. He hopes to get his students to “learn those, then record them, submit it, and then [he’s] going to be putting them together in a virtual choir format.”
“It will be available for the public to watch,” says Carrillo, and he is planning on putting the concert on his YouTube channel. The concert will “have no charge associated with it”, and will be “free to whoever” would like to view it.
Chamber students are required to submit a solo for the concert, however for Ranger Choir, “in terms of the soloists, we’re going to see how many we get turned in.” Ranger students are not required to turn in a solo, but they can if they would like to.
Even if some are not performing a solo, Carrillo still plans on including everyone in the concert. “We have about 93 kids in Ranger right now, and we’re hoping we can get all of their voices” to sing in the concert.
Tessa Hemphill ‘22 is a member of the Chamber Choir. For her required solo, she is “planning on singing the musical theater song ‘Crossing a Bridge’”, from the animated film Anastasia.
“I worked on it in voice classes and I performed it once at a small outside event about a year ago”, says Hemphill. “Crossing a Bridge” is her favorite song, and she doesn’t believe it gets enough credit.
Hemphill thinks it is unfortunate that the concert will not be live. However, she thinks “this is still going to be an awesome way to do a concert safely, and hopefully it will urge more students who were previously nervous to perform in front of people to participate!”
Sergio Lozano ‘21 is also a member of the Chamber Choir. For his solo, Sergio chose “Glenn Miller’s ‘Chattanooga Choo Choo’, an old big band swing tune” from 1941.
“I used to play piano in middle school jazz band and have come to love the music from that era”, says Lozano. He enjoys Glenn Miller’s work, with “Chattanooga Choo Choo” being his favorite song by the artist.
Lozano is sad to be missing out on the “sensory experience of singing with a choir or the immediate response of the audience”.
However, he is optimistic and glad that he still has the opportunity to share his music with the school. “The fact that we have the technology to be able to still sing together and share something beautiful with everyone is something I’m really grateful for”, says Lozano.
Until it is safe to return back to school, all RHS Choir Concerts will proceed online through YouTube.