As another Windsor High School academic year comes to an end, the final set of fine arts performances has concluded for 2023-2024 school year, a bittersweet but exciting moment for freshmen and seniors alike.
From start to finish, choir is an open environment that expands a knowledge of music, as well as creating a great way to work together with peers in an environment where everyone feels welcome.
“In the choir program here, I have changed so much, not only as a musician but as a person. I feel like in this choir program you really learn how to become your own person, and coming into high school that was really hard for me because I was distant and shy, and I feel like throughout this choir program I have grown to come out of my shell,” Joy Perry-Grice (12) said.
Many students’ advice for those thinking of even just considering trying choir is just to take those chances; high school is one of the best places to try everything, and the only way to find “your” place is to try.
“My favorite part about choir is probably just the process of taking a song and learning it, and then going through all of the different details that we can do to make the song as perfect as we can possibly get it, and just all the hard work that we … do and just get a song where it needs to be,” Cole Cooper (12) said.
There are a variety of aspects throughout many clubs that benefit the person, but many choir participants have expressed the overwhelming sense of acceptance and self-betterment right when they step through the choir room doors.
“Over the course of time, we’ve bonded so I think the choir program in general is just a close family … I feel like this program is really good at welcoming everyone,” Perry-Grice (12) said.
That sense of belonging is also coupled with that yearning for musical adversity or, in other words, to expand a thirst of pushing to a limit.
“I like being able to do more challenging things, like the six-part, eight-part, ten-part things, cause it sounds more interesting, and it might technically be harder but it feels easier,” Kimberlin Cohen (11), a member of both the concert choir and the treble choir, said.
For those who have already found a place in music, choir also brings that opportunity to expand what they already know, gives new perspectives and illuminates musical paths they would never have assumed to take.
“It’s been a great experience, because I started playing music in band, but then a bunch of my friends in band told me to join choir, and so I did and it’s taught me a lot about music, and then also just allowed me to connect with so many other people,” Cole Cooper (12) said. Cooper was in both concert choir and Wizardry this year.
While a community has to have welcoming people to be considered a welcoming environment, it also requires a supportive base to build itself off of. Over the past four years, director of choirs Amy Murphy (staff) has expanded the reputation of the program, teaching virtue as well as choral and musical foundations.
“I feel like she’s (Mrs. Murphy) very super supportive, and also pushes you to go as far as you can and she’ll make you work hard to get to better places,” Opal Schlessman (12) said.
Another year gone, and another choir season is finished. Times will change and soon next year, a whole new set of people will share their choral experience together. As of now, they say goodbye to one more year they can be proud of.
