Half a dozen Swampscott High School students participated in the 67th Massachusetts Music Educators Association Northeastern District Senior Festival.
Seniors Michael Schwartz and Scout Myers-Smith; sophomores Hadley Husted, Kira Madruga, and Niamh Murphy; as well as freshman Kristy Van Dam performed in the district festival on Saturday, January 10 at Arlington High School. Swampscott High School Chorus Teacher James Pearse called the experience an impressive feat.
“It was just a fantiatic opportunity for them,” Pearse said.
The students had to advance through a judged audition to earn a qualifying score and secure a spot in the festival. Each student prepared the same piece, sang their assigned part, performed a major scale and sight-read music.
“They received a score around their tone quality, rhythmic accuracy, their pitches and all of that stuff,” Pearse said. “Honestly the sight reading is the thing they’re all kind of nervous about doing, but we practice that here in our chorus rehearsal.”
Pearse has 42 students in the school’s chorus and said eight auditioned for the senior festival.
“I do really encourage the kids to audition,” Pearse said. “Honestly, to audition for districts, I give them extra credit, but I don’t think that’s really the reason they go. You have to make the effort to go to the audition.”
After being accepted into the senior festival, students had just two rehearsals before the performance. Nashua High School North Choral Director Brianne Biastoff conducted the festival’s chorus this year.
The chorus program included:
- “In Youth Is Pleasure” by Gustav Holst
- “Sit Manu La’iti’iti (Little Bird)” arranged by Steven Rapana
- “Sing, My Child” by Sarah Quartel
- “Hela Rotan” by Ken Steven
- “Hold Fast to Dreams” by Susan LaBarr
- “Fire Dance of Luna” by Darius Lim
Pearse said he “really liked” the LaBarr song and may add it to his chorus’ spring repertoire.
With 181 singers in the senior festival, Pearse said the “scope of the kind of music that they can do is so much greater” than what a single school’s small chorus group can accomplish.
Despite being one of the smaller schools represented, Swampscott ranked among the top 11 schools in student participation. Arlington High School had the most choral students, with 38, followed by Winchester High School (16) and Wakefield High School (12).
Going forward, Pearse said some of the younger students are interested in pursuing music after high school, while his seniors see it more as a hobby to continue with other interests.
“I just think it’s one of the things that humanizes us and honestly in a world that is not so kind lately,” Pearse said, “you can continually turn to creating art to make yourself feel more comfortable in the world and make other people feel more comfortable in the world.”
All six Swampscott students also earned scores high enough to qualify for all-state auditions.
“We were really excited about that,” Pearse said.
All-state tryouts are on Saturday, January 24 in Grafton, and the students will have a similar judged practice to the senior festival. Pearse said the audition will be more challenging, featuring a more difficult piece performed with recorded vocal tracks instead of piano accompaniment.
The all-state festival will be in March.
