The Chorus Festival

Ok, so I was lucky enough to go to a school Chorus Festival a week ago.  You see, every class picked a song in September and they have been practicing the same song for the past three months in Music class.  Last week, all of the students from Fuwa Junior High went to the Tarui Culture Center in the morning and each class performed their song to the entire school.  There was an adjudicator (only one adjudicator) who took notes of each group and at the end she gave her comments and announced the top group of each grade.  I took many pictures because I wanted a picture of every class singing (there are about six classes in each grade so that makes for a lot of pictures!)  I won’t post all of my pictures and I won’t write very much for this post, but there are a couple of interesting things I noticed that day.

First, all groups performed in at least three to four part harmonies.  The music teacher was nowhere to be seen because the students were the leading this event and they even conducted their classes.  Also, every class had a student who could play the difficult piano music that was used to accompany the class in their singing. 

Again, I can’t stress enough how the students led the event.  There were student MCs, each class how a conductor, piano player, and a student who introduced the piece.  Even the speeches at the beginning of the event were given by students.  The only adult who really spoke was the principal and the adjudicator.  So here are some photos of the day.

These are pictures of the students walking from the school to the festival and sitting down at the Tarui Cultural Center Auditorium.

Here are pictures of some of the student MCs and the students who gave speeches to the school.  (Oh yeah, and a picture of the principal addressing the group.)

Each grade group was brought to the stage to sing a grade group piece.  These songs were not judged. 

At one point, all of the students stood up in front of their auditorium seats and started singing a mass choir piece.  It was awesome because I was sitting amongst the students!  There was a student conducting the whole group and a photographer on stage taking a picture of all of the students in the auditorium.  He was on stage behind the student conductor.

Here are a few photos of the different grade groups singing.

At the end, the adjudicator went to the stage to give her feedback on the performances and to announce the grade group winners.  Whenever the students had to applaud her, they really applauded loudly…as if that would make her favour one class more than the other or something!  I have to say, I ended up agreeing with her decisions.

Here is a photo of the students (and myself) walking back to school along the park path beside the river.  Lovely!

What a great morning!  I’m glad I had a chance to witness these performances because all of the students worked really hard in their music classes over the past three months.  I had an excellent time at the Fuwa Junior High Chorus Festival.  It’s too bad I didn’t see Kita Junior High’s school Chorus Festival, but I also didn’t get to see Fuwa Junior High’s Sports Day.  I guess both schools are even, then!  I wonder what the schools will do next…