November 13, 2013
5th Grade Students Participate in Honors Chorus
Six Prince Avenue fifth graders traveled to Jonesboro to participate in the Statewide Elementary Honor Chorus—a conglomeration of 500 fourth- and fifth-grade students from schools throughout Georgia, sponsored by the Georgia Music Educators Association.
The students, chosen by their schools’ music instructors to be part of the Honor Chorus, will spent Friday and much of Saturday rehearsing in preparation for their performance in First Baptist Jonesboro’s Worship Center on Saturday. All 500 students were assigned to be part of one of two choirs, both of which were be directed by well-known conductors. Each choir will rehearse independently and not hear the other choir’s songs until the concert on Saturday.
Lower school music teacher Larry Boling selected Prince’s six participants this year, including fifth Cassie Atha, Gracyn Behr, Elizabeth Coleman, Camille Hardin, Anna Hardwick and Ellen Patton from the 30 students who auditioned. Boling said selecting only six from those 30 has been the hardest challenge of this process. The chorus is not only for girls, but Boling said it just so happened this year that the six who stood out were girls.
The Honor Chorus performed several songs, two of which were spirituals, which Boling said is not normal for the state concert. “They’re two really old, African-American spirituals, and they’re really cool, fun songs to sing,” Boling said. “One of the other songs they sang is a really funny one called ‘The Duel,’ which is about a cat and a dog having a fight, and the singers really liked that one.”