This year for LGPE, Drew Charter School's Advanced Mixed Choir sang The Word Was God, by Rosephanye Powell, and Like a River in My Soul, by TIm Osiek. I am really proud of us as a choir as we earned Superior rankings from all judges on both songs and on Class B sight reading. My favorite piece of the two songs is Like a River in My Soul. I believe we really perfected the dynamics written in the score and our performance is beautiful and captivating.
This year's Fall Concert was a combined performance of the Elementary, Junior, and Senior Academy choirs. Each academy performed two songs and at the very end, all choirs came together to sing one final song.
(17:30) The first High School Choir song we performed was "Viva La Música" by David Brunner. (20:00)The second song, "Wide Open Spaces," by Sarah Quartel, was also performed at the Georgia State University Sing Fest, which Drew students (including myself) were a part of. (26:15) The closing song, "Sanctuary," by Jason Robert Brown, was written during the pandemic and the strong, impactful lyrics could allude to recent events, such as the Uvalde shooting earlier in May of 2024. The significance of the meaning of the song and the whole choir of different ages together was really powerful. I was honored to be able to be a part of it all.
Choirs from different schools in Georgia came together to sing two songs, Wide Open Spaces by Sarah Quartel, and Shine the Light by Raymond Wise. We spent 90 minutes going over each piece and improving our sound. We then listened to performances by the students of GSU, including opera and musical theatre pieces, and then performed our songs together for the finale.
This year's Winter Holiday Concert opened with a combined choir from the EA, JA, and SA with "Christmas Canon," accompanied by our own student harpist, pianist, cellist, and violist.
24:40 - The Senior Academy choir performs "Like a River In My Soul" which was also performed at GMEA District V Honor Chorus. This was my favorite song from the concert because of how beautifully we sang it.
33:30 - The SA choir performs "Various Themes on Fa La La" which consisted of silly renditions of William Tell Overture, Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, "The Blue Danube," and Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture. At the end of the song, during the 1812 Overture, multiple confetti canons were fired into the sky. The perfect timing and the crowd's reactions were my favorite part of the concert.