Coming May 20, 2021, New Prairie’s High School’s choir is putting on their last performance for this school year and, for some, their final show. Everett Forrester, Choir Director, is excited yet sad to see his seniors go. A few seniors, Mackenzie Mansfield, Alexis Bensoussan, Molly Lenig, Brianna Hooton, and Wrigley Hemphill, have shown great leadership and dedication for the choir through their time at New Prairie.
“I chose to be a choir director because I love performing, conducting, and seeing the joy on every student's face as they are performing,” Forrester stated.
Choir has four different classes and two different categories of students, including Concert Choir, Sapphire, Innovation, and Sing Sensation. Innovation Choir and Concert Choir are both open to all of the students to join, while Sapphire and Sing Sensation are all-girls choirs. Another big difference between the many choir divisions are that the Show Choirs are the only two groups that compete against other schools, while Sapphire and Concert Choir perform for audiences in the auditorium at the home of the New Prairie Cougars.
Most of the time the students practice in the choir room which has a large stage for the students to sing on. When the competition season starts, the Innovation Choir performs in either the auditorium or gymnasium.
Choir has been difficult this year in the case of the Cougars. There have been many challenges facing their time with competitions.
“We wanted to participate in a few other competitions, but they were cancelled or virtual because of COVID-19. COVID-19 has also limited the amount of practice time. With less practice time, it has limited the number of songs the choir has been able to perform, and going back and forth between virtual, fifty/fifty, and 100% has been a constant challenge to what we can learn and get ready,” Forrester said. “COVID-19 has also taken out some of our choir members during performances, making it difficult to perform at our best.”
Some other things that COVID-19 has limited for choir includes contact with one another, which has made it more difficult to perform during concerts.
“Some of the effects COVID-19 has had on are performances include: at competitions, performing back to back, and completely changing the way competitions run, like no finals, competition food, booths, and watching other schools.”
Forrester has given the choirs performances a large selection of songs including, “How Can I keep from Singing,” “It's Raining Men,” “Non Nobis,” “Domine,” “Can't Help Falling in Love,” “May It Be,” “Choral Highlights From Jersey Boys,” “Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree,” “Breath of Heaven Snow Globe,” “That's Christmas To Me,” “O Magnum Mysterium,” “The Mad Hatter,” “I Will Prevail,” “Losing My Mind,” “Opening Up,” “Cake by the Ocean,” and several others, which have been sung all throughout the 2020/2021 school year.
As the school year comes close to an end the Choir is excited to perform their last concert and end the year on a high note.
“Choir is amazing, and we hope that as time progresses, more students will take interest in choir, and will want to join,” Forrester said.