Carrboro High School Sports and Performance Schedules
In December: Choir, Orchestra, Band, and Jazz Performances, and Sports
Carrboro High School’s December Choir Performance Quickly Approaching
By Leah Coyle, Carrboro High School Student, 11th Grade
Carrboro High School’s (CHS) December Choir Concert is rapidly approaching and they have been working on their pieces for months. The concert is on December 18 and the song selections are following a winter theme, very fittingly.
Mrs. Puhala, CHS’s choir teacher of 8 years, discussed what songs they are singing. “So we have a combined piece with the orchestra and the chorus together that’s called Tundra that I am really excited about.” The choir has never done a combined orchestra piece before which sounds very interesting but also very challenging in terms of timing and keeping up with each other.
“Our other combined piece is going to be combined with the eighth graders from Culbreth. We’re doing ‘Carol of the Bells’.” The CHS choir has done numerous pieces with the Culbreth eighth graders in order to give them a feel of what it would be like for them if they were to take the choir classes at Carrboro the next year.
There are two different choirs at CHS. One is Chamber Choir, which requires an audition, and the other is Concert Choir, which is open to everyone. When asked about the songs Concert Choir will perform, Mrs. Puhala said, “Concert Choir has ‘Walking in the Air’ from an old 1980s animated movie called The Snowman. They also have ‘Stand by Me’ and ‘Maus Zor,’ a Jewish piece.”
A few choir students also shared their experience and how they are feeling about the upcoming concert. Senior at CHS in Chamber Choir, Maggie Williams said, “I like being in choir because I get to make music with others and sing songs with beautiful harmonies!”
Another student, Aidan Kirby, Sophomore at CHS, also in Chamber Choir, talked about her experience in choir and said, “I like choir because I enjoy singing.”
When asked about the practice for the concert, Mrs. Puhala said, “Seeing the students every day this year on the block schedule has been really helpful since we are so practice-based just being able to do it every day. We’ve been moving really fast and they’re sounding really great.”
The choir students also went to the All City Singing Festival at East Chapel Hill High School in October. All City is a celebration of singing with CHS, East Chapel Hill High School, and Orange High School where all the students learn the same six pieces of music. After learning the music, the students go to a two-day long festival.
To clear up some things about how the process of All City works, Mrs. Puhala said, “We bring in an outside clinician who's an expert in the field and we have a two-hour rehearsal one evening, a full day rehearsal the following day with that clinician and then a big combined concert with everybody together.”
When rehearsing for any concert, the choirs spend hours practicing outside of class. They practice after school and during school such as during Flex Time, which is a time for students to catch up on work for classes.
Mrs. Puhala recounted some of the songs that the schools sang for the festival. were “‘Sing My Child’ which is a standard choral piece. We had “Gamaya” which is a Sanskrit text and used a lot of ancient Indian musical elements which was really cool. We did ‘Gotando’ which was a South African piece. There was ‘Peace’, a Shaker hymn. ‘In Time of Silver Rain’ which was a lot of students' favorites because it was pretty and it split into eight-part harmony as well and a lot of really pretty chords. It was a Langston Hughes poem. And the last one was ‘I Will Sing’, a gospel piece that we did with drums.”
From seeing what songs the choir sings in just one set, it is clear they care about singing diverse pieces and want to represent many different cultures through their music.
Overall, the choir performances are a very fun time. Come out and watch our choirs perform what they have been working so hard for on December 18 at 7 p.m. at CHS! No purchase necessary!