The Gabrielino High School choir department will host its annual Spring Concert at 7 p.m. on May 14 in the Gary E. Goodson Theatre.
The ticket price sold at the door is $7, while a pre-show, catered Petrillo’s dinner is $15. The choir concert, including Petrillo’s spaghetti dinner and pre-show, can be purchased online through the ASB store.
The Spring Concert consists of academic songs containing intricate harmonies, rhythms, and dynamics for choir festivals and competitions. The choir will perform the acapella songs, with piano accompaniment by juniors Kaden Chan and Justin Wong.
“I’m excited…[for] my choir students to perform their final concert of the year on campus, they really get to showcase their talent,” said Choir Director Robert Cartwright. “I’m looking forward to the students being able to feel some level of satisfaction.”
The combined Concert and Chamber choir performance will begin the concert, transitioning later to the chamber singers. Towards the end, Jefferson Middle School Concert Choir will perform with Gabrielino High School’s Chamber Choir, in the song “Sing Gently,” composed by Eric Whitacre.
This guest performance from the JMS choir is the start of a new tradition at Gabrielino.
“My favorite song is ‘Lightning’! I really enjoy it every time we practice,” junior Kelly Chung stated. “The dynamics are really fun and since it was easy to learn we’ve been given more time to play around with it and find out what we like best.”
Before the show, Petrillo’s will cater a spaghetti meal and bread, and the outside cafeteria area of the Gary E. Goodson Theatre entrance will be decorated for the event. During the banquet, there is an awards ceremony along with student singing performances as entertainment.
One of the pre-show singing performances will be “I’m Still Standing” by Elton John, covered by senior Anna Barraclough.
“I’ve been very committed to the choir…I practice at home and hum the songs to myself pretty much every day,” Barraclough stated. “And that dedication remained while we were having teacher issues for the beginning of this year.”
Following their Winter concert in December, the choir continues to rehearse extensively, including after-school practice sessions made possible by tools such as YouTube recordings and sheet music posted on their Google Classroom. In addition, the chamber choir’s sections meet once a week for extra practice, to clean up certain parts, and to memorize.
“I’d say I’m very mentally prepared,” senior Kristina Lu said. “I think I’ve committed a lot of extra time out of class, learning pieces and understanding my parts better.”
As time comes near to the concert, lengthy combined choir after-school rehearsals have helped students clean up loose ends and provide further confidence for the upcoming performance.
“[I evaluate] on a regular basis where my choirs are at with each piece, and strategizing on how to better help them get to the place where I know they can get to,” stated Cartwright.
