March 6, 2025 Concert

March 6, 2025 Concert at Somerset Academy Canyons.

The Somerset Canyons bands and choruses gave their annual spring concert on March 6th, 2025. This post is a follow up from that evening’s performance.

Tech issues

Microphones are almost always an issue with Canyons performances. The chorus needs mics, but we also need an individual mic in order to talk to the audience.

The chorus mics are kept in the band room and I test and adjust their levels during the day. But, the handheld mic isn’t available to us until an hour or less before the performance.

This makes for an added stress before the show, but things usually work out well…

A microphone was plugged into our sound system at around 45 minutes to show time. I checked the mic around 5:40 to be sure it was working.

It wasn’t.

The mic’s battery was dead. A new battery was brought over, but the mic still didn’t work.

Eventually a new mic was plugged into the system and it worked fine. But now the accompaniment track for the chorus wasn’t streaming through properly. We weren’t able to figure out what the problem was.

And I hate to start a show late.

But, 10-15 minutes later and a few ugly feedback loops… we still couldn’t figure out what the problem was.

Chorus accompaniment

A chorus can sing without any accompaniment, but it is very difficult. Many choruses have directors or accompanists who play the piano while the chorus sings. I choose to purchase accompaniment tracks to use with the performance. I buy these tracks about a month or more before each performance and the choruses sing to these tracks in class in order to get used to what the performance will be like.

But, tonight our tech issues would make it virtually impossible for the chorus kids to hear those tracks.

I chose to stop the accompaniment during the second middle school chorus number. The performers were well in front of the accompaniment.

The choruses performed well, considering that they were basically doing each song unaccompanied and a cappella.

Beginning band

The beginning band had a few percussionists that didn’t show up for the concert which made some of the music sound thin, but the kids performed well.

I’m not creative with what the beginning band performs at the spring concert. Each beginning band performs Regal March and Montego Bay. These songs come from their beginning book; Standard of Excellence, page 21.

We get more creative in the final concert of the year. For now, mastering these two pieces with only 8 months of experience is a worthy goal.

Middle School and High School Chorus

Both of these groups did music by Pinkzebra. These songs are upbeat and have positive messages. I could probably do an entire Pinkzebra concert.

The middle school sang a beautiful ballad named, Riversong and finished with Pamjoja. Pamoja is an African expression which means, “Together”. The song’s message is that we get further if we work together.

The high school sang a piece called “Ad Astra” which has latin expressions which tell you to be encouraged and look to the stars to guide you. They finished their performance with a beautiful arrangement of George Harrison’s “Here comes the sun”.

It was difficult for these groups to perform at their peak level because of the sound system challenges.

The Bands

Our jazz band continues to perform well. Jazz band practices after school on Tuesdays. We focus our energy on one piece of music and do our best to perfect the performance.

The highlight for the middle school band was their performance of “Celtic Air and Dance”. The students love that song and their passion shows up in their performance.

The high school band gave great performances of all their music. This group of musicians never plays together until the night of the concert. We have students in 1st and 2nd period band classes but we also have a few students joining us from the middle school band. And, we have another student performing with us who isn’t in any of the band classes.

This is a challenging situation, but the students performed well.

Our next concert will be held on May 8th at 6 pm in the Somerset Canyons Gym.

You can read about our Holiday concert here.