By Zach Rosenberg
Staff Writer
The Mira Costa Choir program will hold its first departmental concert, This Shining Night Winter Concert, today from 7-10 pm in the auditorium, featuring many holiday themed songs.
Director of Choir Mr. Michael Hayden chose a variety of songs including “O Virtus Sapientiae” by Hildegarde von Bingen and “Maria Mater Gratiae” by Gabriel Faure, in order to provide older and more festive songs for attendees to sing along to. There will be four choirs and two a cappella groups performing at the concert, which consists of Women’s Choir, Men’s Choir, Advanced Women’s Chorale, Vocal Ensemble, Mira Costa Muscle and Coterie.
“We are performing a wide range of selections dating from the Medieval Period through current popular selections and traditional holiday music,” Hayden said.
Video: Choir performs at This Shining Night Winter Concert in December. The performance brought the community together to celebrate the holiday season.
According to senior Parker Mattern, this performance is a great way to show the work the Costa choir program has been putting in. The group has been practicing every day at school and had three after school dress rehearsals.
“It gives us the opportunity to showcase all that we’ve learned,” Mattern said. “We really grow as a group in the last week preparing for the concert with our three after school rehearsals.”
Photos: Mira Costa Choir Program Performs at This Shining Night
Family, friends and community members attend the concert, as it is always holds their largest attendance. According to Hayden, the main goal of this performance is for students to sing songs for the community and enjoy the beginning of the holiday season.
“I think the concert really brings the community together,” Mattern said. “We really appreciate that people love coming out to watch all the choirs perform.”
The Mira Costa Choir program held practices Tuesday through Thursday from after school, in which their main focus was to perfect their songs for the concert. According to junior Macallen Laver, because this is one of their biggest performances of the year, they prepared more for this concert than any other concert so far this year.
Mira Costa Choirs Website: http://miracostachoirs.org/
“Being part of choir helps me gain many skills like memorization because of all the practice and rehearsals we did to perfect the songs for this concert,” Laver said. “All of our preparation is worth it in the end when we sound like a beautiful and flawless unit.”
Mira Costa Choirs Winter Concert Song List: http://miracostachoirs.org/various-music
The next department concert will take place on June 8, 2017, however, other smaller spring concerts will take place before that. The Costa Choir Program is also going to Europe over spring break where they will perform in the Netherlands, Germany and France.
“The students have worked diligently to present this beautiful music and are very excited,” Hayden said. “[The students are] preparing for spring festivals and our spring concert, there is a lot going on.”
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