By Jolie Vargas
The Prowler
The Bridgewater-Raritan High School choir program gathered together to hold its Winter Choral Concert on December 16.
A variety of five choirs—including three curricular choirs, two student clubs, and one extracurricular auditioned choir— were able to perform and showcase their singing talents in the Bridgewater-Raritan High School auditorium.
To begin the evening of musical performances, the Mixed Choir took the stage.
Those students performed three songs: "Winter Bells" by Alan Bilingsley; "Hanerot Halalu" by Becki Slagle Mayo; and "Betelehemu" by Barrington Brooks.
After this opening, the Select Treble Choir, the Glee Ensemble, the Ensemble, and the Lorelai Ensemble all performed their pieces. This period of the concert was full of diverse sounds that completely engaged the audience.
The Symphonic Choir concluded the concert, singing the final three songs: "S’vivon Al Hanism" by Jason Brown; "O Come O Come Emmanuel" by Timothy Kile; and "Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day" by John Gardner.
Each choir had begun to practice in preparation for the Winter Choral Concert about two months in advance at the start of the school year. The Symphonic Choir had begun their rehearsals as early as mid-October.
The Winter Choral Concert commenced at 7 p.m. and continued until approximately 8:10 p.m. Pianist Christopher Fortina also came and played with the choir; select band and orchestra students also took the stage.
Faith Duenas, a sophomore from the Choral Glee Ensemble at Bridgewater-Raritan High School, spoke on her passion for being able to participate in the concert.
“Being in choir has brought me so much joy. This year’s winter concert has brought me and my choir family together. The songs we sang tonight were very meaningful and in total it was such a beautiful performance,” she said.
The concert was a great success and all was made possible due to Lisa Rotondi, who is in her first school year as the Director of Choirs at Bridgewater-Raritan High School.
She replaced Dr. John Wilson, who moved on to the State University of New York at New Paltz.
After teaching choir at Eisenhower Intermediate School for a while, Rotondi expressed her gratitude for being given the opportunity to begin teaching as choir director at Bridgewater-Raritan High School. She also reflected on her overall impressions of the concert.
Holiday spirit filled the Winter Choral Concert. (Bruce Moran)
“I really like working here. I have wonderful students, and I feel really good about the winter concert. I think it was a well balanced program in terms of diversity in music. They sang beautifully and were well performed. I received a lot of nice comments from the audience and was happy with everyone's engagement, she said.
Ms. Rotondi looks forward to improving the choir's ability even further and making the choir program the best it can be.
"Choir isn’t singing all the time - we also listen to different music and learn how to read music. It’s really a true team activity, and our students are like a family. One of my goals for the choir program here at this school is to double the number of students in it, building it larger,” Ms. Rotondi said.
The choir program will perform at various concerts this coming year, including the Festival of the Arts on Wednesday, March 19,