On Wednesday, January 31 and Thursday, February 1, LBUSD’s high school honor choir performed alongside the Long Beach Symphony at the Terrace Theater for third through fifth graders.
The honor choir includes the following high schools within LBUSD: Poly, Millikan, Wilson, Lakewood, and Renaissance. They met at Millikan for weekly rehearsals since the beginning of January.
Eckart Preu, the eighth Musical Director of the Long Beach Symphony, conducted both the symphony and the choir.
He started the concert off with two pieces from Carmen, composed by Georges Bizet, one with featuring a trumpet solo and the other featuring the choir singing in French. The next piece was “Polovtsian Dances” from Prince Igor composed by Alexander Borodin. This song and “1812 Overture” composed by Peter Tchaikovsky were both sung in Russian.
The “1812 Overture” originally featured live cannons to emulate warfare, but the Terrace Theater would not allow those, so instead a red button was used to play recordings of the cannons. Preu selected a child from the audience to hit the button when he signaled them. After that piece the honor choir took a break for two symphony only songs.
The first piece was “Ride of the Valkyries” composed by Richard Wagner. This is a song that is used in many commercials and movies so it was recognizable for the children. The second piece included an additional student volunteer who got to conduct one of the pieces.
The last piece of the show was a real crowdpleaser. It was “Duel of the Fates” from The Phantom Menace. The kids went crazy over hearing a song from a movie they knew very well and were amazed by hearing that song with a live symphony.
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