Choirs, student music groups host first concert with new director
October 19, 2015
The annual Fall Concert took place on Oct. 12 with the new choir director, Kelly Mielcarz. Student-led groups such as Chorelles, Hawkapella and Enchords, as well as the beginning, intermediate and advanced choirs, performed various types of pieces, such as a cappella ballads and a tribal improv pieces.
Mielcarz had set high expectations for students as she wanted to impress the audience for her first concert.
“Overall, the concert, in my opinion, was a success for the students,” Mielcarz said. “It’s always hard when a new director steps into position and they have to learn my new ways … but they did a really nice job in achieving my expectations.”
The concert started with beginning choir performing and gradually worked up towards advanced choir with student-led groups performing in-between. One of these groups was Chorelles, an all-girl a capella ensemble led by Maria Kalantzis, senior and advanced choir student. When rehearsing for the concert, they looked at the music in a different way in order to overcome problems they had in the past.
“[We wanted to] perform as one group instead of individual voices standing out,” Kalantzis said. “I felt like we really overcame that.”
Chorelles performed two songs, “Time After Time” by Cyndi Lauper, and “And So It Goes” by Billy Joel, a piece more upbeat leading into a quieter ballad.
“We chose ‘Time After Time’ because it had really good harmonies in it and the consonants [Lauper] used in it sounded like instruments, and it sounded cool,” Kalantzis said. “[‘And So It Goes’] was more of an emotional [song] where we got to use our dynamics a lot.”
Kalantzis also performed in the final piece with all choir students. This was one of Mielcarz’s statement pieces where students encircled the audience while they performed “Sesere Eeye.” Similar to a tribal piece, students sang in a foreign language and danced in sync.
“The reason I picked [that] piece for this first concert was [because] I wanted to make a statement,” Mielcarz said. “I wanted to shake things up a little bit and let the people know that, yes I am new, but I am not afraid to step in and run with it and try knew things.”
Overall, Mielcarz felt that the concert was a success, and is looking forward to the choirs’ next performance, The Winter Concert, where student-led groups will again be performing alongside the different choir groups.
