On Tuesday May 17th the Sky View High School String Orchestra and Concert Choir entertained a small group of family members, fellow students, and friends in one of their final performances of the year. In a beautiful mix of orchestral music and vocal pageantry those in attendance at Tuesday’s concert were treated to a wonderful performance that showcased the amazing talent of these students.

For the concert choir this will be their final performance of the year, for some it was their final performance at Sky View. One of those students performing in her final show at Sky View was senior, Melissa Bingham. Bingham along with Tanner Daines performed a duet in the song “Defying Gravity” by Shwartz and Emerson. The multitalented Bingham has participated in drama, Encore, and choir. What Bingham enjoys about choir is, “that everyone has different backgrounds in music. In other performances people perform the same kind of music, here you have kids that have never sung before, and watching them sing for the first time is cool.” Bingham has plans to continue her musical ways by participating in competitions and joining a performance group if she ends up at a college that has those things.

Tanner Daines who is new to this type of performance said, “I actually didn’t know I could sing until first tri.” Daines has enjoyed his time in the choir at Sky View and thinks it would be fun to participate in a college choir, “it’s just a lot of fun for me” he said.

The choir performed numbers that included a traditional Hebrew number “Hine Ma Tov” by Neil Ginsberg that featured a flute solo by Eliza Done. The crowd was also treated to the gospel sounds of “Praise His Holy Name!” by Keith Hampton. Another crowd favorite was “The Phantom of the Opera” by Lloyd Webber and Ed Lojeski. Phantom featured the duets of Chelsea Jenkins and Kinnen Hawes, and Jared Weaver and Lexy Shauers.

Lexy Shauers is a junior who has performed this year in the “Wizard of Oz,” Encore, and various concerts. Shauers enjoys choir saying, “Having an entire wall of voices rather than just a group of voices you can do a lot more mature pieces.” Shauers would love to be a singer but feeling that may not be to realistic has decided to become a lawyer after school. She kidded that she may sing her closing arguments when that day comes.

One of the Phantom soloists, junior Kinnen Hawes said that he really likes Phantom but his favorite piece of music is “Defying Gravity.” Hawes has also performed in Sky View Idol, and Sky View’s Greatest hits. The ambitious Hawes has future plans in the music industry where he hopes to become a country music singer and song writer. What Hawes enjoys about performing in the choir is “the closeness of everyone, and just how everyone binds together.”

Before the choir performed the attendees were treated to beautiful music from the string orchestra that wafted throughout the auditorium. The orchestra performed pieces by Richard Meyer, Edvard Grieg, Antonia Vivaldi, and Benjamin Britten. The brief orchestra concert was a warm up to upcoming events as they prepare to head to the state orchestra competition.

Sophomore violinist Chandra Harvey has been playing for eight years, beginning when she was eight years old. All of those years of practice have really paid off as her solo in Vivaldi’s “L’ Inverno” was performed to near perfection. With a desire to go into a career in music Harvey has her sights set on Julliard after her time at Sky View is complete. In critiquing Tuesday night’s performance Harvey had this to say, “I feel like this has been one of our better concerts, they’ve all been pretty good but this one was very good, and we all had fun together.”

The orchestra is directed by Richard Kline. Kline described some of the work that goes into preparing a performance such as this saying, “there is an entire trimesters rehearsal for an hour every day . . . actually tonight’s concert we started preparing at the beginning of the year, just touching on some of the pieces because we’re going to state day after tomorrow.” The Sky View orchestra was rewarded with the trip to state as they were one of only three orchestras in Region 5 to receive scores of all 1’s at the regional competition.

Kline feels these students are ready now to perform at state commenting, “we have to keep them up for two more days, it’s interesting because you can peak with high school kids, you can over rehearse which is a dangerous thing. It’s very difficult to reach that high level of performance and freshness that you need to bring to music. I think we’re going to pull it off this year, it’s going to be fun.”

Kline has been working with many of these kids beginning in the sixth grade where he starts working with them at White Pine Middle School and works with them for seven years of their student careers through the twelfth grade in Sky View. When asked about his thoughts of watching the seniors perform for the last time at Sky View he reflects on his long relationship with them and says, “It’s incredibly difficult for me to see them leave; I’ve started some of these kids from their first time on the instrument. It’s quite emotional to see them walk across that stage I’ve seen them grow from little children into maturing young adults. I love that about my job.” And of tonight’s performance Kline says, “I’m really proud of them, you heard the concert, they played up a storm, I’m really proud of them.”