The Orono MS and HS Choruses performed their spring concerts at Hauck Auditorium on May 15 and 16. The band, orchestra and choruses performed to appreciative audiences. Here are a few pictures from the middle school performance.
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The Orono High School and Middle School Spring Concerts will be held at Hauck Auditorium at the University of Maine next week. The choral students led by Mr. Henry have been feverishly preparing to dazzle the hometown crowds with their beautiful choral tones honed over the past semester.
Miss Hinton, a recent Music Education graduate of the University of Maine, will be conducting a piece at each concert. This will be the opportunity for the students who have known Miss Hinton since January to be under her baton one last time before she has to leave the area. Students may wish to say goodbye and wish her well in the search for a music teaching position out of state.
The High School Concert will take place on Tuesday, May 15 at 7PM. Chorus and Concert Choir members will arrive at 6:30PM to get settled and check in.
HS Concert Program
If Ye Love Me, Keep My Commandments***************Thomas Tallis (circa 1505-1585)
Set Me As A Seal Upon Your Heart**********************David N. Childs
And In The Evening****************************************Audrey Snyder/William Blake(1757-1827)
Hello, Goodbye*********************************************Lennon/McCartney Arr. A. Billingsley
OHS Jazz Choir
Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off***************************George Gershwin/Ira Gershwin
When You’re Home from In The Heights***************Lin-Manuel Miranda Arr. M. Brymer
Just a Single Voice***************************************S. Albrecht/J. Althouse
The Orono Middle School Chorus will perform on Wednesday, May 16 at 6:30PM. Chorus members will arrive at 6:00PM to get settled and check in.
Orono Middle School Concert
Art Thou Troubled from Rodelinda***********************G.F. Handel Arr. Sherri Porterfield
Batoto Yetu************************************************Roger Emerson/John Jacobson
Let It Be****************************************************Lennon/McCartney Arr. K. Shaw
Shine On Me***********************************************Trad Spiritual Arr. Rollo Dilworth
There will be a number of solos that will be announced in the program at the concert.
Come support the Arts in our schools. See you soon!
Congratulations go to Isaiah Grace, Haley-Marie Stubbs, Madeline Marks, Katherine O’Brien and Jessica Walker for representing the Orono Middle School Sixth Grade Chorus as well as Orono Middle School at the 2012 District V Elementary Honors Music Festival in Milo.The Festival featured choral students from the greater Bangor area nominated by their school choral director.These students prepared pieces before arriving at the festival to join their voices in a chorus of 100 members.
Students rehearsed the entire day with their guest choral director before performing to a packed audience at the evening concert. Great job, District V Chorus! Great job, Orono sixth grade chorus!
Competition
The 2011-2012 Orono HS Concert Choir are back from their participation in the Boston Heritage Festival on Saturday and Sunday, April 28-29. Congratulations goes to the Concert Choir for earning a Silver Award based upon the tally of the adjudicator’s scores at the festival competition.
The Concert Choir performed three selections:
If Ye Love Me, Keep My Commandments-Thomas Tallis (c. 1505-1585)
Set Me As A Seal Upon Your Heart- David N. Childs
Hello, Goodbye- Lennon/McCartney Arr. A. Billingsley
Adjudicator’s were:
Richard Maynard-University of New Hampshire
Kristen Huffman-Western State University
Tony Thornton-University of Massachusetts-Amherst
The OHS Concert Choir received their Heritage Festival Silver Award at the banquet held Saturday night. Representing our group, Mirjam Whalen and Max Birgfeld-Davis went forward to receive the plaque which, for the moment, resides at the OHS Main Office window.
Choruses and instrumental groups from Hornell NY, Toronto, ON and Sept-Iles Quebec were also participants in the Boston festival. Following the banquet student were able to mingle and meet at a dance held in the Grand Ballroom.
Activities
On Saturday, students were able to see the sights of Boston when they boarded a amphibious vehicle known in WWII as a DUKW. Some of these DUKW’s have been retrofitted to take passengers around Boston by land and then by “sea” when it entered the Charles River for a tour between Cambridge and Boston. A few of the Concert Choir members were able to ‘pilot’ the ‘ship’ out in the open waters of the Charles River.
After our breakfast buffet on Sunday, the Concert Choir spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon at the indoor CoCo Key Water Resort. The resort included two water slides, one which starts at the top of the 65,000 square foot building with the tubes moving both inside and outside the building.
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Students in Concert Choir and Chorus going to Boston on Saturday will be meeting for two special mandatory rehearsals the week they get back from vacation. Rehearsals will be in the cafeteria and OHS Music Room and will start at 6:30pm and end at 8:00pm.
Ms. Hinton, Mr. Henry’s student teacher at Orono High School, Orono Middle School and the Veazie Community School will be performing in UMaine’s ‘Renaissance’ Spring Show on Saturday, April 21 at 7:00pm at UMaine’s DP Corbett Hall in Room 100. 
To those Concert Choir members going to Boston for the Heritage Festival, information was given today in class. Please read carefully. The second page of the packet includes a parent consent form. This needs to be completely filled out and returned to school by Tuesday, April 10. Click on the link if you would like to print the consent from. Student/Parent Contract
If you have any questions about the trip you can contact me in the form provided below.
Beth Plissey, director of choral activities at Johnson State College in Johnson VT performed for our music students at Orono HS on Monday. In the midst of a five day tour, Orono HS was a homecoming of sorts for Ms. Plissey. Beth was a former student of Mr. Henry when he arrived in Orono in 1988. Beth was known for her dedication to choral music, her piano skills and her energy in making the most of her music opportunities while at Orono HS. Beth went on to get her degree in music and a M.M. in Choral Conducting, at Indiana University.
The JSC Chamber Singers performed from a wide and varied repertoire with music from the Renaissance to interesting 20th Century pieces. The concert selections were interesting and kept the attention of the audience.
The Orono HS Chorus and Concert Choir had the opportunity to sing with the Johnson State College Chamber Singers. Unbeknownst to Beth or Mr. Henry, both groups had sung Kirby Shaw’s arrangement of “Bridge Over Troubled Water” this year. Once this was discovered, the OHS singers joined the Chamber Singers for the performance. Following “Bridge”, the OHS singers performed “Hello, Goodbye” for Johnson State.
After the concert, the Chamber Singers packed up their coach and left for MCI in Pittsfield and for schools in southern Maine. Good luck to them and we hope you will come back and visit us again.
Beth Plissey, OHS Class of ’91 will be returning to her alma mater Monday, April 2. Ms. Plissey, choral director at Johnson State College in Johnson, Vermont will be bringing her touring choral group and will be performing in the OHS Cafetorium during Block 1. Bethany is Assistant Professor of Music at Johnson State. She received her Masters of Music in Choral Conducting at Indiana University.
OHS classes are welcome to come hear the performance. Please email Mr. Henry for space is limited.
Beth in the cast of Oliver!- 1990
From Basement Medicine, 9/9/2010 “Five Join JSC Faculty”
Admitted Phish fan Professor Plissey comes to Johnson from the University of
Wisconsin-Platteville, where she helped direct choral activates and lectured on choral and music education.
“I was a music teacher for a couple years and did some music education studies during my schooling, but didn’t really feel like I was qualified to be heading the whole program and teaching the entire curriculum on my own,” Plissey said. “So, I decided to leave there and find a position that fit my expertise as a choral conductor with emphasis on music history. I’m also helping the musical theater program out while trying to bring cohesiveness to some of the curriculum for the music education program.”
Plissey, who says that she was worried she wouldn’t get the position because she spent most of her interview admiring the view from Barbara Murphy’s window, wants to focus on expanding and diversifying JSC’s chorus and actively recruiting high school students interested in music.
“You have to be very proactive in music,” Plissey said. “I’m looking at bringing service and a sense of community to the choral ensemble. We’d like to tour area schools in the spring, so we’d actually be running out to the schools and giving concerts. That’s a big goal; I would really like to see a hundred people singing in three or four Chorale and Chamber Singers at Johnson State five years from now.”
