Both chorus and band, as they did last year, delivered a performance on Wednesday, Feb. 24, that brought friends, family and numerous spectators to the auditorium. For their last concert prior to the county-wide Music Performance Assessment, the two performed together at the auditorium.

During the concert, band and chorus alternated performing. Chorus was seated in a portable bleacher fixed in front of the main stage, while band occupied the surrounding stage. Songs performed by the choir included “When I am Silent” and “Sound the Trumpet”.

“The women’s chorus song ‘When I Am Silent’ was my favorite moment from the concert,” chorus singer Leslie Corona said. “It was extremely fun to sing.”

The piece, which many considered to be their favorite, continued the trend of “feeling the feels” and told a tale of Jewish discrimination.

According to chorus member Morgan Wagner, director Victoria Rathbun selected a list of songs to highlight what she considered to be the strengths of the choir.

“The songs I sang were either about the Holocaust or the 2011 tsunami in Japan and came out sounding really strong,” Wagner said, giving the catalogue the title of  “feel the feels.”

The purpose of this concert was to prepare both groups for the upcoming MPA, where both will be have the chance to progress to states if they earn the highest grade possible.

MPA, held Friday, March 7, is a yearly critical review of either choir or band. A panel comprised of professional judges grade how well the group performed with multiple scores. The scores range from one to five with five denoting a superior.

Two songs are practiced and memorized prior to the MPA and then performed for both groups. Sight reading, where the musicians are given a random piece of music and only a minute to study it, encompasses the last portion of the assessment.

The performance that wowed spectators such as Nguyen and freshman band member Tuana Castro did not convince all that they were prepared to excel for Friday’s musical assessment.

“I felt we didn’t do too bad but we definitely would have barely scored a superior if we were at MPA’s,” junior choir singer A’Dreyanna Williams said.