Ensworth Virtual Choir Concert by Grades 4–8

6/10/2020

by Kirby Wiley '10

Students in grades 4-8 worked hard, alongside Middle School Choir Director Aaron Velthouse, Technology Coordinator Brad Wilkerson, and Technology Support Specialist Ben Sams, to produce Ensworth’s first-ever Virtual Choir Concert.

“This has been a project unlike any I have ever attempted or even been a part of,” Velthouse says in his video introduction of the concert. “It was a lot of fun, but also hugely challenging.”

Students were asked to record themselves singing two songs which Velthouse recognizes was no easy task. “It is a lot easier in a concert to be surrounded by seventy other kids singing along with you and your teacher in front of you giving you all of the cues, the entrances, the cutoffs, mouthing the words, this is different,” he says. “They had to memorize it, they had to sing it, and they had to try to not make mistakes which is tricky.”

Members of Ensworth’s technology team carefully organized the hundreds of recordings of 4-8 graders, then put them together piece by piece.

Velthouse says that although he didn’t have to do this project, there are a few reasons he felt it was important.

“Choirs perform. Choirs sing for an audience, and in this case, we are doing it virtually, but we still have an outlet to perform the music we have been working on, and I think it’s very important.”

Velthouse concludes his introduction by saying, “In a time like this, I think listening to our children sing is one of the best things we can do and one of the best things that they can do for us, so I’m so grateful to the work that they’ve put into this.”

Below is the order of the concert from start to finish.