Tag: Choir

  • Sing For Retired Teacher

    The Poly Choir ensembles performed at two concerts on March 6 and 7 in the auditorium. The chorale, chamber, Cecilian, and the two jazz ensembles performed on Wednesday, and Inspirational Glee and Grace sang on Thursday. They were split up to avoid holding a two-hour long concert in one night, choir director Brian Dokko said.

    The concert on Thursday was held to celebrate the retirement of Lori Grace, Poly’s chorale accompanist. Grace has been Dokko’s assistant director and teacher of both ensembles performing on Thursday for the past 10 years. She brought many Poly Choir alumni to the performance as well as a few former students from Jordan High School, where she started her career in the Long Beach district.

    Many of the students who sang at the concert said that they felt happy or nostalgic about the events. “This [was] one of my last concerts as a senior,” Poly senior Jovanni Pham said. “I had a lot of fun singing with my friends.” Sophomore Sophia King of the Cecilian ensemble said that while the choirs performing on Wednesday didn’t have a lot of time to rehearse, “We did a way better job than I thought we would.”

    The Poly Choir ensembles will sing again at their spring concert in May of this year. Dokko says that it is expected to be a smaller event than the most recent one.

  • Choristers Get Opportunity of a Lifetime

    Choristers Get Opportunity of a Lifetime

    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.