A Night Of Music
Wentzville Middle Schools hosts its first ever “WSD Sings” at Liberty
All three Wentzville School District middle schools join together for a night of music.
March 14, 2019
On a typical day, you won’t see middle school students at a high school. On March 13, that changed.
All three Wentzville School Districts middle schools (Frontier, Wentzville South and Wentzville Middle), all came together for a night of music.
The reason behind the concert was because the middle school choral program has a new curriculum.
“Part of the curriculum is that we are doing a clinic [the concert],” Frontier choir director Ms. Thornton said. “It’s just three middle schools.”
But how did this “WSD Sings” concert come to Liberty?
“I offered [Liberty to host],” Thornton said. “It was our first year.”
This year’s clinician is a man with many talents. Dr. Jim Henry, who co-directs four-time Barbershop Harmony Society gold medalist chorus, the Ambassadors of Harmony, which are a local choir located in St. Charles, and teaches at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.
The concert started at 6:05 p.m. with an introduction from Ms. Wilson-Smith, who is the choir director at Wentzville Middle School.
The first song performed was “Furaha” easily transitioned into “Old Dan Tucker”.
After the second song, Dr. Henry talked to the audience about how the students came together and worked hard. The students rehearsed from 1 to 5 p.m. and performed later that night.
“[Eighth graders] Really came and worked hard,” Henry said. “When you are rehearsing it can be tedious and tiring.”
The third song performed was from the musical “Dear Mr. Evan Hansen” called “Waving Through A Window”. The song featured two soloists.
The penultimate song was the famous middle school song, “Elijah Rock”.
Finally, the concert came to an end with a speech from Dr. Henry saying thank you to the parents for making music a part of their lives which tied into the final song. Which was called “Why We Sing”.
The concert lasted for 24 minutes. Dr. Henry was pleased how the concert turned out.
“I thoroughly enjoyed it,” Henry said. “I really don’t get to do one of these.”
So did choir director Ms. Thornton.
“[Dr. Henry] is so high energy,” Thornton said. “He’s just really amazing at what he does.”
