Middle School Concert Report

Tanner started his freshman year playing in the second best orchestra of three in his school. Here, he excelled musically and made new friends with upperclassmen. By January, one of Tanner’s older friends had convinced him to join choir, so he decided to audition for the upcoming year. As a sophomore, Tanner sang bass in the top choir, even though he did not have any prior singing experience. The same year, he also auditioned into Symphonic Orchestra, the top orchestra of his school. While he was in both the top orchestra and choir, he started student conducting for the lower orchestras and choirs. By senior year, Tanner’s schedule was almost completely filled with music classes. Consequently, Tanner grew extremely close to his high school ensemble directors. It got the point where he could casually call his Symphonic Orchestra director “mom.” This inspired Tanner to make it a goal for himself to form strong relationships with his future students. Through his experiences conducting his high school orchestras, and choir, Tanner found that he really enjoyed teaching music and decided to study music

“Why would someone join chorus? Only nerds and weird people are in choir.” Hearing comments like these when I was in middle school almost discouraged me from participating in the arts. I did not want to do anything that would make it more difficult to achieve popularity, for I was obsessed with trying to fit in with my peers. My chorus teacher knew how irrational it was for me to think that and convinced me to try out for chorus. I am forever grateful that she did, for joining chorus allowed me to express myself, connect with others, and create memorable experiences.

Daryl Yasay, my old high school chorus director, has helped me to become the music lover I am today. Mr.Yasay is an awesome chorus director as expected from someone with a Master’s degree from FSU in choral conducting. But instead of just focusing on the technique of music he also would teach his students to focus on the emotion and message of the music. I remember once after an after school rehearsal I was waiting for my mom to come pick me up and we were talking about the new song he had gave us. I was explaining to him how I was annoyed at the thought of singing the song because it was a love song and at the time I was going through a heartbreak and did not want to sing about love. He then told me a story about how when he was in high school

As a third and fourth grader, I participated in choir. I enjoyed it then but decided to stop so that I would have more time for homework. In the beginning of seventh grade, when it came time to decide if you want to join choir, Maria Abbulone and I chose to sign up. We thought it would be a fun experience because we enjoy singing, and we had done it in past years. As choir practices began, Maria and I thought that it would be a fun experience for the year, and we might decide to do it in eighth grade. As the choir kicked into full swing, everything was going well.

When I attended the Crane Youth Music Camp (CYM) in Potsdam, NY for the first time in 2012, I studied vocal performance only for the reason that I enjoyed singing as a hobby. I felt lost being in a camp filled with future music majors, because at the time I wanted to be an engineer. It was not until I returned to CYM in 2014, when playing guitar and singing with my new friends, that I had my first realization. If I wanted to be an engineer, I would be at a STEM camp, but I had chosen to return to music, a place where I would stay.

On Friday, July 10th, I chose virtually to attend an online YouTube Symphony Orchestra Concert-2011. Many beautiful pieces were performed by a magnificent orchestra that included more than sixty participants and consisted of instruments such as: flutes, oboes, horn, clarinets, bassoons, trumpets, percussions and strings. Concert’s selections varied in length, temperament, mood and dynamics. Orchestra Symphony gave an overpowering, extraordinary presentation and delivery.

For many, a fun summer often includes a visit to some sort of fair, whether it be the county fair or even the state fair. One of the unique aspects of the Ohio State Fair, specifically, is that they have their own youth choir known as the All-Ohio State Fair Youth Choir. This is an organization designed to bring high school students from all over the state of Ohio to live at the Ohio State Fair for eighteen days to make music. Throughout this experience, I have learned many important skills that will stick with me throughout the entirety of my life. Here is just a small sample of what I’ve learned.

Dr. Carol Williams’s organ plays were just fantastic. Despite the fact that seeing the instrument called, “organ” was my first time, it was pretty impressive how that instrument worked. All the pedals and the three layers of keyboards were just as complicated as a calculus math problem. The concert was played at the Spreckels Organ Pavilion at Balboa Park. The surrounding was not too bad. Although the concert day was Sunday, it was quite crowded. Besides the crowdedness, the surroundings were not too rough. All ages were welcome to seat and enjoy the sounds of organ. I saw mostly old aged audiences and I saw a little amount of college aged audiences with the music report information on their hands.

Across the United States many elementary school music classrooms are filled with simple and popular tunes such as Hot Cross Buns and The Ode to Joy, played on the recorder, while high school students may be playing collegiate or professional pieces of music such as Armenian Dances and Carmen Suites. I have been very fortunate to have gone on the journey of progressing through different music education programs within Fairfax County Public Schools. If I was never exposed to music while in elementary school I might not have ever found one of my greatest passions or been able to create such fond and unforgettable memories. While music education programs across the country appear large and strong, many schools are beginning to experience budget reductions. As a result, music is often the very first component of a school 's curriculum or programs to be cut or significantly reduced, but I believe this is not the right course of action. It is important to preserve and promote music education in public schools because of the proven cognitive, character,and academic benefits for students.

Some say one choice will change an entire life. Well, the choice I made to join choir in 7th grade sure did change my life. Entering my senior year is sad because I know soon I will no longer be a part of the wonderful things that happen in this school’s choirs. I know one thing for sure, I will end my senior year with a bang and getting to go to choir camp would start it off great. Thank you for your

     I chose to do my first concert report on Pearl Jam. The concert took place at Deer Creek the weekend after class started, so it was perfect timing to do this assignment. This was the first time I have seen Pearl, and I thought it was worthy of writing a report on.

For this concert report I chose to go to a performance of student composers held at the Kimball Recital Hall. I chose this one because I wanted to see some of the talent that my peers have in the music realm, and also it was one of the only concerts I have been able to attend because I usually work at night. It was impressive to hear pieces composed by students. I cannot imagine creating something as complex as a musical composition, much less actually performing it, so this aspect of the concert was particularly awe-inspiring. There was a large attendance, and I think that much of the audience consisted of friends of the composers and/or performers. I went with three friends, who I convinced by telling it would be interesting to see

Graziano, Matthew Peterson, and Gordon L. Shaw a group of children were given piano lessons and math training for a certain amount of time, while a control group received only the math training. At the end of the experiment the children were all given a math test; the children who had been given piano lessons scored fifteen percent higher on their math tests than the ones who received only the math training. (Deasy 110) According to Chorus America’s Chorus Impact Study, “parents with children singing in choruses report their children get significantly better grades than children who’ve never been part if one.” This fact is proven in their research that states that sixty four percent of chorus students reported that their language arts skills had improved, fifty seven percent reported that they improved in math, and sixty one percent reported an overall increase in their academic skill levels since joining fine arts. From those statistics, it is almost impossible to imagine that anyone would consider removing fine arts from public schools.

This type of outlet is invaluable in our society. From the results of these choirs alone on improvements in self-esteem, confidence, self-worth and happiness, it seems like creating choirs for people who are struggling in some way is an obvious choice of action in terms of ways to help others. As

Many people believe that the arts, specifically music programs, hold no beneficial value to students other than for an extracurricular activity. Others believe that having these programs within our schools, only takes away from instructional time. However, research has shown that music education, and exposure to music in general, provides great benefits and values to the adolescents that are involved in said programs (“Music Matters”). Participation in music programs promotes the advancement of academic scores and sets students on the path to success later in life. Furthermore, these programs, be it instrumental or vocal, provide an outlet for adolescents to express themselves and have truly lasting implications on their global development. Notwithstanding all of the pleasure and self-confidence gained through participation in music programs, music education may provide important benefits towards students’ academics by improving their concentration levels and cultivating higher order thinking skills that may increase academic achievement.