CCS students entertain at vocal concert

    “A Little Bit of Music” was the theme for the K-4 end-of-year vocal concert Monday night.
    Students came dressed-to-a-T to perform a variety of songs and dances. To add to the melodic array, different age groups demonstrated their expertise playing recorders, kazoos and boomwhackers.
    The evening’s musical selections included folk songs and patriotic music.
    The concert began with the Star Spangled Banner, performed by the entire K-4 student body while positioned all over the gym.
    The first group to present their songs were the fourth grade students.
    They played eight short selections on recorders and finished by singing two energetic songs.
    Next up was the kindergarten students who sang three songs, one of which they enthusiastically waved American flags. They finished by dancing to a folk song.
    The first grade classes also began their performance with a dance and sang two selections. The students enjoyed playing drum-like percussion instruments to one of their songs.
    Second grade students sang a song accompanying themselves with boomwhackers in a type of musical “round.”
    Boomwhackers are lightweight, hollow, color-coded, plastic percussion tubes, tuned to musical pitches by length. They are “whacked” against the hand to produce different pitches.
    They then sang three more songs, including a presentation of “America the Beautiful.”
    The third grade classes performed three selections with one song played on kazoos.
    Their final song was called “American Tears” where the group sang this patriotic selection against a large-screen backdrop showing a multitude of photos in America from pioneer days to various scenes of military and historical moments in our country.     
    The photos accentuated the words of the song in perfect musical and visual harmony.
    The final number of the evening, once again, involved the entire K-4 student body performing a song called “An Old Irish Blessing” while scattered all across the gym.
    Jodie Liess, CCS elementary vocal teacher, directed the large group standing on a chair positioned in the center of the gym.
    The crowd’s energetic applause gave evidence to the quality concert put on by Liess and her K-4 students