Working together to bring the performance to life, students and teachers hosted the annual District Chorus concert at Souderton Area High School on February 11.
The performance is held at a different school each year, rotating between different schools that take part in the program.
This year, students from several districts came together at Souderton for the District Chorus performance.
According to Souderton choir director Jon Timmons, putting the entire event together took a lot of effort.
“There are so many little things and details, and you’re bringing that many kids together,” Timmons said. “And directors have formalities and things you have to do from the state level to make sure everything’s organized, all the financials are organized, all that kind of stuff.”
Timmons also said that collecting information from students, such as permission slips, made the process more difficult.
The set-up process was also a lot of work from a student perspective.
The performers spent their time learning all of the music on their own at first, and spent nine hours rehearsing the day of the performance.
“We had about a month on our own to rehearse,” District Chorus member Joey Beck said. “Then at the actual festival, it was just a full day, 9-6 p.m.”
Due to complications with COVID-19, the schedule of the festival had to be changed.
“In other years, typically we have three-day festivals,” District Chorus member Kacie Watkins said.
Because of the pandemic, the festival was shortened to a single day, and performers were given less time to rehearse together and get to know each other.
According to conductor Grace Muzzo, the day of the performance was “a lot of hard work.” Muzzo said that the event is difficult to plan. “You have to be really careful that you don’t exhaust everybody vocally and mentally, because we still have to be fresh for the evening.”
Timmons said that the most fun part of planning was working with Muzzo.
“We had a couple of FaceTimes together talking about logistics, just talking about music,” Timmons said. “In terms of planning, that was the most fun, being able to collaborate with her and get the ideas of what we wanted the day to look like.”
Despite the difficulties from planning the festival, both the directors and the performers were happy with how the concert turned out.
District Chorus member Blake Aspinwall said that even with the changed schedule, the performance went well.
“I think it went great, especially for only having one day to practice compared to the usual three.”
According to Aspinwall, many of the singers enjoyed rehearsing for the concert and performing in it.
Beck enjoyed the rehearsal experience.
“I think that the rehearsal was fun. It wasn’t stressful, it wasn’t annoying, it didn’t drag on forever. I feel like the rehearsal time was very fun and I enjoyed rehearsing the music,” Beck said.