March 10, 2004

Students shine at All-City concert

Performance features orchestra and choirs

By Carol South
Herald contributing writer

       With his pure and soaring voice, soloist David Rice thrilled the audience during a rendition of "Homeward Bound."
      No professional performer, Rice is a member of the All-City Boys' Choir, whose members are fifth and sixth grade students drawn from local elementary schools. A sixth-grade student in Central Grade School's TAG program, Rice illustrates the talent pool available in the upper elementary grades.
      This talent was showcased Thursday evening during the All-City Elementary Concert, held at West High School. In addition to the boys' choir, the event included the All-City Band, the All-City Orchestra, the Combined All-City Choirs and the All-City Girls' Choir.
      Participating students were drawn from the 17 Traverse City Area Public Schools elementary schools as well as St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Middle School, Immaculate Conception Elementary School and Trinity Lutheran School. TCAPS contracts with these last three schools to provide music instruction.
      The band and the orchestra each performed three numbers, ranging from the Overture 1812 for the band to Simple Square Dance for the orchestra. The boys' and the girls' choir each performed three numbers, with the girls' portion dedicated to Eden Elkins, a member of the choir who is recovering from a serious automobile accident.
      Performing for the first time before a large audience gave some students the jitters.
      "I was nervous but I just ignored everybody," said Brian Rosebush of his approach to the audience.
      Rosebush, a sixth-grade student at Long Lake Elementary School, played the trombone with the All-City Band and was participating in his first concert. The nervousness was worth it, though.
      "I just like playing," Rosebush said.
      Audience support helped Curtis Salamino, a member of the All-City Boys' Choir, at the concert's beginning.
      "I was kind of nervous but when we got into the piece, the audience made you feel like you did a good job," he noted. "I've always liked to sing and love to play the piano, too."
      The students in the All-City Music event are the future high school band, orchestra and choir members, said Dave Parrish, the K-12 music coordinator for Traverse City Area Public Schools.
      "This is the greatest, the beginning of where it all starts," he said "This is an extremely important part of our program."
      "The All-City program is the foundation," he added. "If you go to the high school bands or orchestra or choirs and ask, 'How many of you were in the All-City?' the hands would go up all over."
      Students in the TCAPS music programs begin singing in kindergarten and start playing an instrument in the sixth grade. The instrumental students audition for a place in the All-City ensembles and have been playing with either the band or the orchestra since September.
      The music teachers at each school encourage promising vocal students to audition for the All-City choirs, said Todd Vipond, director of the All-City Boys' Choir. These choirs are made up of all general music students from each school.
      "The music teacher in each building pre-auditions students and then they all show up here to audition in November," he said, of their West High School rehearsal venue. "Then in January, we start to do all the music."
      This intense two-month commitment by members of the All-City Choirs includes mandatory weekly practices after school as well as one two-hour Saturday practice a month. If a parent will not commit to that schedule, the child cannot join the choir.
      "You have to totally commit your child, they cannot be absent," said Penni Schwartz, whose daughter, Ali, a fifth-grade student at Immaculate Conception Elementary School, sang in the All-City Girls' Choir.