The Southeast Quad Choir Concert was held at MTHS on Thursday, March 7, from 7 to 8 p.m. The eventful night began after all the energetic kids stopped running around the Terraceum with choir director T. J. Sullivan giving a small introduction about himself, the different choirs present and the quad concert itself.
The first song of the night was “Rise” by Andra Day, performed by all the choirs present. These included Hazelwood, Cedar Valley, Terrace Park, Hilltop, Brier elementary schools and of course, MTHS’ very own chamber and dynamic choir.
The song began with a quiet, low introduction that built up to the triumphant chorus. Although the contrast of voices was quite noticeable, it was actually a harmonious combination of the high schoolers’ deep voices along with the high-pitched elementary school voices.
The next song was a short but cute song entitled “Coffee,” sung only by the elementary school kids consisting of children in the range of third to sixth grade. “Coffee” is a children’s song about how the beverage is not for everyone. The song progressively picks up speed until it is so fast that all the performers end up in a laughing fit, their tongues all tied and twisted. There were some complications at the beginning, with some students starting a bit early and one of the music directors afraid that the piano was not loud enough. Nonetheless, the children tried their best and carried through passably gracefully.
After “Coffee” came a more gentle, soulful song called “Bright Morning Stars.” It was a calm song sung with hushed voices, as there was no need to overpower the music due to its absence. One note from the piano was struck before they started singing and then it concluded.
For the next song, “The Sound of Silence,” the elementary kids switched with Terrace’s all-female chamber orchestra dressed uniformly in black. Their performance received an abundance of applause from the audience, packed together on one side of the Terraceum. However, at the beginning of the song, a mistake was made when Sullivan accidentally turned up the volume of the mixer too high and drowned out the choir’s voices with the music.
Nonetheless, they were greatly adored, but they weren’t done yet. The chamber choir struck again with another song which received just as much adoration. They sang the Pentatonix version of Imagine Dragons’ “Radioactive.”
Once chamber choir had finished their portion of the concert, dynamic took to the stands to sing the infamous “Under Pressure” by Queen and once more with the Pentatonix version of another well-known song, “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” Throughout “Under Pressure,” the dynamic choir snapped and clapped to the beat and adding their own twist to the song by having a couple of soloists step up and sing who did an amazing job “under pressure.”
When dynamics switched over to “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” they took a gentle approach and with their soothing voices sung to their heart’s content. Both songs received a very positive reaction from the large audience with whoops, hollers and whistles.
The final song of the night was all of the schools coming together and singing “Kusimama” by Jim Papoulis, a song about “standing tall on the Earth,” falling under the overall theme of the night, which was “empowering.”
To conclude the concert, Sullivan stepped up once again to talk to all of the attendees about choir, and he even put some of Terrace’s own students on the spot to talk about their personal experiences in choir. Some described choir as “more like family than a class” and how Sullivan gave them the confidence to sing, especially the soloists. Sullivan said a few words to wrap up the evening and the concert officially concluded with an eruption of applause.
Overall, the concert was a delight to attend and it was certainly enjoyable to see all the hard work put in by all the singers to pull off this amusing event.
