By Brayden Dirks

The MMCRU has done many activities throughout the 2021-22 school year, and has remained very busy. Ms. Breanna De Vos, the high school choir director, shared with me a rundown of what has happened this year, what class has looked like, and what the choir’s future plans are.
The choir has had three concerts this year. One took place in the fall, one in December, and the other took place last Thursday, March 10th at Marcus. The concert on March 10th was a pop concert and the music was composed by one named Pink Zebra. Pink Zebra is the pen name of a very successful music producer and composer, and no one is sure of who it is. All of the songs that the choir performed on Thursday were composed by Pink Zebra. Ms. De Vos gave her thoughts on the concerts, “Each concert we have continued to improve and had a lot of fun while doing it.”
The high school choir meets every school day for class. The order of class usually follows: doing a warm-up, learning new singing techniques, and applying them to the songs they plan on singing for the next concert. In addition to class time, Ms. De Vos has individual lessons with each student several times a week. During the lessons, she teaches them individualized singing techniques to improve their voice quality and sound. She uses this time as a way to bond with the choir students and to help them become a better all-around singer and person. The choir kids have all said that it has been extremely helpful to have individual lessons, and have found choir to be incredibly fun this year.
With all their concerts being over, they now plan to head into competition season. Class time will mainly be focused on the group contest on May 6, where they hope to receive a 1 rating. There are Solo and Ensemble contests on April 9. At that contest there will be several performers: four students that will be performing solos, one duet, and a group of 9 performing an ensemble. Ms. De Vos is very excited to see how well the students do, “These kids have worked so hard already this year and I can’t wait to see how hard they work to sing their hearts out for contest events!”