Students sing, play way to trio of SPVA Best of Class awards

    Chase County made the long trip to Kimball March 21 for the SPVA Conference music contest, returning with three of the top awards—Best of Class.
    From all the 1 ratings given at the contest, judges pick one from each group as their Best of Class.
    The three CCS musicians or groups earning the honor were Aragorn Green and his snare drum solo, the 9th St. Singers show choir and the men’s large vocal ensemble, which includes the six young men in the show choir.
    Rushing, in his second year at CCS as vocal director, said he was “super happy” with the results, and so proud of the progress made by his vocalists since the NE Choral Directors Association festival in February.
    “These kids have been working very hard on their contest music, as well as being very busy with sports, clubs and schoolwork. We have some more work to do before districts in April, but we are definitely on the right track,” he said
    Band director Agnes Strand said Green, a freshman, has been taking private lessons from a CCS alum, Patrick Gleason, via FaceTime and “has worked so hard to accomplish this goal.”
     Strand said it was a full day for the band and choir, after departing at 5 a.m. and returning that night, but felt good about all of their events.
    “Some of these students have been working on their events since January and many combined preparing for this contest with their preps for speech, FFA, FBLA  and FCCLA,” she said.
    “We have a terrific group of high schoolers to work with and are looking forward to performing even better at McCook in April for the District V Music Contest,” she said.
    Both directors also cited the valuable help they receive from accompanist Rob Browning.
    “He not only plays the piano for our students’ entries, he uses the rehearsal time to work on musical concepts with them,” Strand said.
    Here are the full results from CCS’s entries.
Vocal results
    Best of Class —9th St. Singers, 1, Show Choirs
    Best of Class—Kevin Dannatt, Juan De La Fuente III, Brendan Pump, Andrew Wiest, Mason Tyerman, Beau Weiss, (all boys from 9th St. Singers), 1, Men’s Large Ensemble
    Concert Choir, 1
    Girls’ Large Ensemble (all girls from 9th St. Singers), 1
    Brendan Pump, 1, Vocal solo
    Beau Weiss, 1, Vocal solo
    Madelynn Hanes, 1, Vocal solo  
    Kevin Dannatt, 2, Vocal solo
    Navy Havel, Tessa Smith, 2, Female duet.
    Krista Meeske, Athziry Valenzuela, 2, Female duet
Instrumental results
    Best of Class—Aragorn Green, 1, snare drum solo
    Brendan Pump, 1, alto sax solo
    Navy Smith, Kaden Vogt, Andrew Wiest, 1, miscellaneous ensemble
    Hope Reinke and Shelby Schoenholz, 1, mixed woodwind ensemble
    Navy Smith, Zach Herbert, Aragorn Green, 1, miscellaneous ensemble
    Dawson Mollendor, 2+, euphonium solo
    Zach Herbert, 2, trombone solo
    Jesus Medina, 2, trombone solo
    Krystal Smith and Chloe Dittler, 2, brass ensemble
    Dawson Mollendor, Zach Herbert, Jesus Medina, Kaden Vogt, 2, brass ensemble    
    Navy Smith, Tristen Stumpff, Chloe Dittler, James McArthur, Andrew Wiest, 2, brass quintet
    Peyton Dubas, Navy Smith, Matt Murray, 2, trumpet trio
    Kayla Chavira and Tessa Smith, 2, sax duet
    Beau Weiss, Carter Kuenning, Destry Russell, 2, trumpet trio
    Alejandra Castillo, Juan de la Fuente, Aragorn Green, Beau Weiss, Carter Leibbrandt, 2, percussion ensemble
    Simply Jazz, 2, jazz band