Park’s Concert Choir had their first concert of the school year Oct. 26, performing in the St. Louis Park District Choral Festival. There were various performances, encompassing the middle school choir, the high school choir, Park Singers and a combination of all vocalists.
According to choir director John Myszkowski, in preparation for the concert, students were attentive to rhythmic accuracy and intonation in rehearsals. He said he is proud of the students’ dedication because the music was challenging as well.
“Pitch was a major focus because there’s a lot of clashing notes, especially on the “Elijah Rock.” Rhythmic accuracy was huge because the rhythms are super complicated, and there’s only certain words and notes that actually match up. It was a bit hard for them to get those to match up,” Myszkowski said. “I thought the music was super challenging, and for them to have accomplished super challenging music in basically a month and a half is huge.”
Junior Catie Miller said having the opportunity to sing with the middle school students was special because of seeing their progression as a choir and knowing that they look forward to being in the high school choir.
“It’s really fun to sing with the middle schoolers because they’re very new to it and very fresh-faced,” Miller said. “It’s just so fun because, when they watch us sing, their jaws always drop. It always feels cool that we get to sing with them.”
During the concert, the new interim superintendent, Dr. Kate Maguire, introduced herself to the school community. According to Myszkowski, inviting her to come to the concert and introduce herself was an engaging way of connecting her to our school and musical arts program.
“I’m really happy that we reached out to the new superintendent because I don’t know if a lot of people know her,” Myszkowski said. “It was cool for her to have a public forum to start introducing herself since she’s the leader of the district.”
Senior soloist Nicholas Green said the concert allowed him to focus on perfecting his own performance, and the choir faced some challenges musically that they addressed.
“Before the concert, Myszkowski said I was sharp sometimes — that I was on the wrong note. I had to study the notes to figure out what notes I was messing up on,” Green said. “I really did like everything about the concert. However, there was a point where we came in too loud. We ended up finding it.”
Park’s next choir event will be held on Dec. 12 at the middle school.
