FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact Information:
Richard Coulter, WASD Music
570-327-5500 ext 3518
rcoulter@wasd.org
2004 Williamsport Area School District
All-District Choral Concert
The Williamsport Area School District’s Music Department will present its 31st annual all-district choral concert on Monday, March 1, 2004, at 7:30 PM, in the Williamsport Area High School auditorium. The event kicks off the District’s celebration of “Music in Our Schools Month.” The concert is just over an hour in length and designed to be enjoyed by the entire family. There is no admission charge.
The program will feature the talents of over 450 students, grades five through twelve, and is offered as a “tasty sampling” of the District’s comprehensive choral program. Featured groups and ensembles will include the Elementary Honors Choir, the Sixth Grade Honors Choir, the Seventh and Eighth Grade Honors Choir, Williamsport Area High School’s combined choirs, GQ, Les Chanteuses and the Millionaire Singers.
The theme of the program is “One World, Many Voices”. Music from many countries and influences will be showcased including the United States, England, France-Flanders, China, Caribbean, Spain, Venezuela, Brazil, Aruba, Poland, and Liberia. Highlights of the evening will begin with an opening fanfare with brass, and embark on a guided tour of about half the nations of the world in The Picnic of the World set to a famous melody by the French composer Jacques Offenbach. We include When I Am Silent, an emotional piece which evolved from the composer’s visit to the Nazi concentration camp in Auschwitz, Poland. In Tres Cantos Nativos the performers and audience take a journey through the depths of the Amazon forest with the Kraó tribe, a group of native Brazilian Indians. Stevie Wonder’s Sir Duke jives about the “jazz greats” from Count Basie to the king of all, Duke Ellington. In Flanders Fields, with text by Dr. John McCrae, captures the valor and harsh reality of war. Mouth Music, with its tantalizing rhythms and driving melodic lines, reveals the unique partnership of song and dance in the folk music traditions of the Celts and Gael. The blazing of the sun and the rising of the moon are featured in the ancient Chinese folk song, Kang Ding Flower Song. Balia Di Sehú or “Let’s Dance the Sehu” is a folksong that comes to us by way of the Island of Aruba. In Gate, Gate Sanskrit text is used to capture the essence of Buddhist enlightenment, Svaha. The evening’s program will conclude with a West African folk song reminding us to Take Time for Life.
The WAHS Music Department is a 2002, 2003 and 2004 Grammy Signature School
Finalist and in 2002 and 2003 Williamsport was selected as one of the “Best for
100 Communities for Music Education in America”. The 2004 “Best 100 Communities
for Music Education in America” survey is now underway at
http://www.amc-music.org/musicmaking/schools/survey.htm.
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