Idaho Falls High School Choirs to stage end-of-the-year concert this week
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IDAHO FALLS — The Idaho Falls High School choir department is readying its choirs for its annual end-of-the-year concert.
The show is set for this Wednesday, May 17, at the Colonial Theater in Idaho Falls at 7 p.m. and will feature performances from different choir groups. The concert will display the singing talent at IFHS and serve as a farewell to the seniors singing in the choirs. (Click her for tickets.)
“The end-of-the-year concert is going to be really special,” IFHS choir director Caryn Marlowe said. “I have 28 seniors and they’re going to be honored at the concert. But it’s also going to be special because we’ll have really fabulous music and it’s going to be a great night.”
Wednesday night’s performances will feature a collaboration combining her beginning and mixed choirs, “Dimensions,” an advanced women’s choir, a 40-person a cappella choir and “Expressions,” Marlowe’s night choir composed of her top musicians.
Marlowe said the concert shows the high quality of the IFHS choir program and how well students entering from junior high schools have been prepared.
“I walked into this job two years ago and feel like I walked into a fabulous choral program with really good singers,” she said. “I think a lot of that comes from a really good feeder program at Taylorview Middle School. That choir director is Haley Baker and she’s doing such a phenomenal job starting those kids off with a love for music and an ability to read (music). She sends me really good kids year after year.”
Marlowe said the end-of-the-year program is studded with numbers that are sure to be memorable highlights.
“The beginning choir is doing some fun songs that are a little bit easier,” she said. “They’re doing a really beautiful piece of music by Eric William Barnum called ‘Dreams of Thee’ and we’ve got a solo violinist on the piece, Elanor Eddington. Dimensions is doing three, if I do say so myself, kick-butt numbers. They just sound so good!”
“My Expressions choir are such good musicians and they’ll be doing some really fabulous, beautiful music,” she added. “One piece will be conducted by a senior, Maddie Daley, and it’s called ‘Let My Love Be Heard.’ She chose it, she’s directing it, she rehearsed it. The a cappella choir is doing a combined piece with the 8th graders, ‘Not While I’m Around’ from ‘Sweeney Todd.’ That’s our message to those 8th graders: They have a place of belonging in the choir room and we want them to stay in the program all four years of high school.”
Marlowe said the show’s big finale, a spiritual called “Ain’t No Grave Can Hold My Body Down,” even incorporates sign language, which was taught to the students by one student’s mother. Getting the musical down to the point of it being effortless was hard work but having a chance to perform in front of a big crowd at a venue like the Colonial makes all the work worthwhile.
“It’s a big project to organize, that’s for sure,” Marlowe said. “But it’s such a highlight at the end of the year to put on a big concert and let them perform for their parents, for the community and for each other.”
You can catch the Idaho Falls High School Choir’s end-of-the-year concert this Wednesday, May 17 at the Colonial Theater in Idaho Falls at 7 p.m. Tickets are available here.
