Choirs Join Voices for Day of Music

From the soothing, haunting tones of the “Agnus Dei” set to Samuel Barber’s “Adagio for Strings,” which held the middle-schoolers rapt during a brief concert, to the improvised jungle sounds of the Brazilian piece, “Tres Cantos Nativos Indios Krato,” the first piece the two groups sang together, the West Deptford high school and middle school choirs joined their 128 voices in a day of choral music and togetherness Friday.

It was a return to an event that hadn’t been held in years, and choir directors Bill Yerkes and Marilyn Rabbai said they’re planning to make it an annual occasion, similar to the one the band program hosted about a month ago, in an effort to bring the two groups closer and ease the move to the high school for eighth-graders.

And talk about a terrifying transition: every year, middle-school students have just a few short summer months to switch gears and head to the high school, where expectations, choices and realities make a drastic shift.

In terms of activities alone–from sports to music to student groups–the options are overwhelming.

“It’d be easy for them to just come and get lost in the mix,” Yerkes said.

Ethan Nicholas, a freshman at the high school, said he experienced the awkward transition every other freshman goes through, but the choir was the exception to the rule.

“I adjusted to the choir really quickly, because they make you feel at home–it’s a really tight-knit group,” he said.

That’s part of what Yerkes and Rabbai are trying to accomplish, as they try to forge a closer bond between both the middle school and high school and the elementary schools, in an effort to keep kids interested and engaged in music from the lower grades on through their teenage years.

“We’re all in this big musical family together,” he said.

Rabbai added that exposing the middle-schoolers to more mature voices gives them an opportunity to see what the future–which isn’t all that far away–will look like.

“For boys, especially, hearing changed voices that are more mature is really good,” she said.

Erik Mangano, a senior, reflected back on his own move to the high school, which he called “scary”–suddenly singing songs in eight-part harmony, after only dealing with three parts for years, seemed a lot to take in, but he was able to adjust quickly.

Hosting the middle-school students and showing them the ropes for an afternoon should make that adjustment even easier, he said.

“They’ve got a lot to own up to, but if you show them what they have to do, they can do it,” Mangano said. “There’s plenty of young kids with talent.”

As the afternoon wore on, that talent became evident, as the two groups sang through both the Brazilian work and “The Battle of Jericho,” a spiritual that uses idiomatic language coupled to a framework of syncopation.

The students were immersed in the music, from a soprano’s peal over a rumbling bass line to whole-body involvement, as they transported the whispering streams and winds of the Brazilian rainforest with just the motion of their hands.

And that, several students said, is what makes being in choir special.

“Nothing else matters here, you’re only making music,” Mangano said. “There’s no homework, there’s no projects, there’s just pages of music in front of you and singing.”