Fort Bend ISD’s Elementary Honor Choir Preparing for Upcoming Concert

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The Fort Bend ISD (FBISD) Elementary Honor Choir is busy preparing for its upcoming performance at the 2016 Texas Music Educators Association (TMEA) Concert. The 125 member choir, which includes students representing each of the district’s 46 elementary schools, is one of only two district-wide honor choirs and among only eight choirs from across the state invited to perform at the TMEA annual convention. TMEA selected the FBISD choir to perform based on the group’s February 2015 concert recording. The choir will perform on February 12th at 1:30 pm at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center in San Antonio.

To prepare for the February performance, the choir meets each Tuesday afternoon at Highlands Elementary School for a 90 minute rehearsal of various gospel, Japanese, modern and patriotic songs by renowned performers, including J.S. Bach, Ella Fitzgerald and Vince Guaraldi. The choir is allowed 20 minutes to perform at the TMEA Concert.

This is FBISD’s seventh year of forming an honor choir. During the choir’s first five years of performing, students practiced in a “festival format” where they learned the music on their individual campuses prior to joining the mass choir for one or two days of workshops and concerts. Last year, the practice format changed to a “rehearsed choir” style to allow students to meet as a large group and as two separate sections for five weeks of rehearsal prior to the group’s festival weekend with a guest clinician.

The choir is led by Honor Choir staff Kirsten Jordon, director and coordinator; Derrick Black, assistant director; Cathy Patton and Linda Koistinen, accompanists, and Tracy Patterson, elementary music facilitator. The team, along with the district’s Fine Arts Department, has been working on the concert details since June when the District received TMEA’s invitation to perform.

The community is invited to come out and experience the spectacular sounds of the FBISD Honor Choir on February 9th at 7 pm at Christ Church Sugar Land, located at 3300 Austin Parkway.