The Gibson Southern musical theatre class brought Broadway to the cornfields this past Sunday. During their annual choir concert in the auditorium, students belted out a variety of songs from hit musicals: “Lion King,” “Frozen,” “Aladdin,” “Grease,” “Newsies,” “Into the Woods,” “Matilda the Musical,” “Chicago,” “Beauty and the Beast,” “Shrek the Musical,” “Come From Away,” “Les Miserables” and many more. Students began rehearsing for the performance at the start of the school year.
“We have been practicing since the first day of school,” choir director Rob Hutchinson said. “We kept adding a song or two every week.”
There were 10 songs selected, followed by 17 melodies. Despite a variety of pieces, choosing the songs was not easy.
“With this concert, it was really unique,” Hutchinson said. “We had the opportunity for a lot of different people to be involved through musical melodies, as well as some musical classics. Jonnie and Brielle made a big list of songs at the beginning of the school year to get the concert started. I went through the list and made sure that these would be songs that we can do and to find a choir arrangement that would best fit us.”
The Fort Branch and the Haubstadt Middle School choirs were able to join and sing with the high school students.
“With the Fort Branch and Haubstadt choirs, we have had the opportunity to add them to the concert for about five or six years now,” Hutchinson said. “We found songs that would be best for that age group. Of the 10 songs we did, the Disney songs seemed to fit the middle school choirs the best. I sent Mrs. Meyer an email saying, ‘Hey, would you be able to direct?’ I already knew that Haubstadt would, so I just had to ask myself about it and Mrs. Meyer. This is her first year as a choir director, and I thought this was a good opportunity to do it. The concert turned out great.”
Overall, the concert was a success with the songs that were chosen.
“I loved the concert,” junior Mykenna Frizzell said. “I sobbed like three times. It was a really big turnout, and I am glad that the choir added the Fort Branch and Haubstadt middle schools. It was so pretty, and I love the choir concert every time …”
Frizzell also followed up on how she enjoyed the song choices.
“I loved the songs,” she said. “The song picks were good picks. The Disney songs were a good pick as well. Everyone knows Disney, so it was fun, and you could sing along. All the melodies were great, too.”
Senior Noah Wagener was one of the performers on stage.
“My favorite part was just being in the moment,” he said. “You know, not thinking about all the different parts and just feeling the moment.”
Leading up to the concert, a lot of preparation went into making it happen.
“On Monday and Tuesday, we worked on practicing the songs,” Wagener said. “Wednesday, we set up on stage and practiced a little bit there. On Thursday and Friday, we went to practice the songs.”
At the end of the concert, Hutchinson was gracious for all who took time out of their Sunday afternoon to support the students.
“Thank you to everyone who came, and I appreciate everyone’s support of the arts.”
