The Michigan City High School (MCHS) gymnasium was filled with merry sound Thursday night during the annual community favorite “One City, One Sound” concert event. Over 400 elementary student singers across eight schools, 200 Barker and Krueger Middle School band and choir students, and 120 MCHS choir and band students came together in unison for this spectacular event to get everyone in the holiday spirit.
The concert included an array of everybody’s favorite holiday tunes, ranging from traditional Christmas songs to more modern ones, as well as fun changes and additions to some well-loved classics.
"There are some traditional songs but also some more contemporary parody-like Christmas songs,” said MCHS Choral Director Michelle Howisen. “There’s some in different languages, such as French, and there's another group performing an African Hallelujah. We also have some traditional ones like ‘Sleigh Ride’ and ‘Carol of the Bells’ and things like that as well.”
With so many people and moving parts involved, the school corporation’s music departments are hard at work year-round to help make sure it runs as smoothly as possible. The date is booked immediately following the previous year’s concert to make sure the students can use the high school gym for two full days - one for rehearsal, and one for the performance.
From there, the team picks out the songs they hope to perform and starts rehearsing.
“Once the school year starts, all of the music teachers get together and we decide what's going to be a really good song that all band levels can play at the same time that all choir levels can sing, and if it's an accessible song that all fifth through 12th graders can sing together. Once that is done, we start picking our music and rehearsing it with our own individual choirs,” Howisen said.
Howisen, along with MCHS Band Director Franklin “Frank” Gast, also have to coordinate with other departments within the school as well in addition to the students.
“Mr. Gast and I have to meet with many different people in order to make sure this runs smoothly, so we meet with our technology department and our sound department to make sure that we have all of the miking correctly and we have all the speakers and everything we need to make sure our choirs and bands sound the best they can for that evening,” Howisen said. “We work with our full custodial staff because the day of the performance, we bring every student who is performing to the high school and have a full day rehearsal, so the gym is pretty busy all day long. We have to set up the day before; every teacher has to make sure that we have the right transportation to the high school and that all of our students have the right lunches. It’s a lot of meetings so we can improve upon the year before without taking away from what we did that previous year.”
Seeing all the planning and prep then come together on performance day never fails to have Howisen and others with goosebumps - it truly is a magical moment each year. Howisen also enjoys watching the younger students watch the older ones perform, as it gives the little ones motivation and inspiration to stick with doing what they love throughout their time as a student.
“I like seeing the reaction of the elementary and the middle school choirs when they hear some of the high school choirs sing and they're like, ‘Oh my gosh, how did they do that? That's so cool,’” Howisen said. “It's a little bit of a push for ‘Hey, if you keep doing what you're doing and keep going, you can be this good and we'll get you to this level.’”
Howisen also loves sharing this holiday joy with the community as well. The kids have worked hard to bring the holiday musical magic to life, and are excited to share their talent and progress for all to hear.
“Hopefully they look at it and see what our teachers do from kindergarten all the way through 12th grade - in music, we work year-round to make our children sound amazing. We work really hard as music teachers at every level, so hopefully the community, by coming to this concert or watching it on YouTube Live or Channel 98 will see that these kids work just as hard to do these types of performances as any other activity in Michigan City,” Howisen said. "No matter how hard you work at every level, you can still get better and improve and hopefully they will see that from year to year. These kids will continue with our music programs and grow as musicians.”
For more information about Michigan City High School, visit its website at mcas.k12.in.us/MCHS.