Kearsley’s choirs took the stage Tuesday, Oct. 27, for a spectacular event titled Meet the Choirs.

The concert featured Armstrong’s seventh and eighth graders, along with KHS’ Men’s Chorus, Women’s Chorus, A Capella, and Melody Makers.

I thought the concert was pretty short but still did a great job of showing off the skills of the different choirs.

Opening the concert were the seventh-graders with “I Will Give You the Key,” by composer Daniel Kallman. They then sang “I Hope the Teacher Won’t Call on Me” by Stephen L. Lawrence.

I liked how their voices still had a children’s-chorus feel to them, and I liked the hand motions the students did with the song.

The eighth-graders took the stage next, performing Andy Beck’s arrangement of “Solia Sollew” and then “Peanut Butter Jam” by Will Schmid.

Men’s Chorus was up next, opening with “Codfish Shanty” arranged by Vijay Singh. The choir was louder and prouder than the middle-schoolers.

They performed Roger Emerson’s arrangement of “Elijah Rock!” after that, one of my favorite songs of the night. It flowed really well.

I was a big fan of the echo effect between the tenors and the bases.

As the Men’s Chorus wrapped up its performance, the Women’s Chorus stood up. They began with “Bound for the Rio Grande” arranged by Emily Crocker.

The girls then sang “Shine on Me” arranged by Rollo A. Dillworth, a great performance filled with passion.

Before the next performance, Mrs. Renee Kotzian, choir director, stopped the show to thank Mrs. Cindy Lemon and give her flowers for all of her hard work in fitting the choir students in their formal wear, organizing their shirts, and more.

A Cappella sang next, performing  J. Chris Moore’s arrangement of the folk song “I Know Where I’m Goin’.”

I already expected it to be a great performance, considering how well A Capella always does. I especially liked how the boys echoed the girls, singing, “I know where I’m goin’,” and then, “She knows where she’s goin’.”

My favorite performance of the night was next.

The A Capella performed “The Nightmare Before Christmas” medley arranged by Alan Billingsley. “The Nightmare Before Christmas” is one of my all-time favorite Halloween and Christmas movies, so I was most excited to hear this.

The medley consisted of “This is Halloween,” “What’s This?” “Kidnap the Sandy Claws,” “Oogie Boogie’s Song,” and then the performance went full circle, coming back to “This is Halloween.”

I could easily tell that the choir loved performing this song; it was definitely a favorite of theirs as well.

Everyone got into the song, dancing, showing emotion, and even laughing evilly.

The two choir students doing the speaking in “This is Halloween,” senior Konstantinos Zaravelis and sophomore Raven Burge, did a wonderful job setting the scene for the upcoming songs in the medley.

The concert came to a close when the Melody Makers sang the every-concert tradition, the “Irish Blessing” (by Linda Spevacek), giving the audience a blessing until “we meet again.”

Because Kotzian had been away from work the first five weeks of school due to her hip surgery, the Melody Makers, an after-school group, could not meet often. So it was sad that the group was only able to perform the blessing.

All in all, even with Kotzian’s absence, I thought the choirs still were able to come together and sing beautifully.