Music
The school offers both a choral program (director: David Smith) as well as a band program (director: Anthony Graffeo). There are three choral groups including concert choir, treble choir, and varsity choir. Concert choir is open to any student, while treble choir (all female parts)and varsity choir are available upon passing an audition based on the skills of singing unaccompanied as well as being able to read music. These are considered to the more advanced choral level. There is also a madrigals group that is also available through audition, but you are not required to be enrolled in a choir. The band program includes a percussion ensemble, jazz ensemble, concert band and marching band, which will feature the music of Elvis Presley on the field this year. (The wind ensemble was eliminated in 2012 due to low enrollment). The marching band is mandatory for any student enrolled in any instrumental ensemble. The Johnsburg Marching Skyhawks march at every home football game, as well as competitions and parades throughout Northern Illinois.
The Marching Band has competed at Marengo Settler's Day's Field Show Competition, St. Rita Mustang Stampede, Sandwich HS Marching Band Invitational, Wheaton North High School Marching Band Festival, and the University of Illinois Marching Band Festival. The Marching Band also performed in Walt Disney World at the Disney Magic Music Days Parade in March 2008.
The Jazz Ensemble has competed at Jazz in the Meadows and the Northshore Jazz Festival. The Jazz Ensemble has also performed at the Fox Valley Jazz Festival and the Johnsburg Educational Partnership Foundation Gala, and recently at Walt Disney World in 2004 and March 2012. Historically, the school's band has also performed at Epcot Center (1988), and aboard a cruise ship in the Bahamas (1990, 2006 and 2010)
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Famous quotes containing the word music:
“Did the kiss of Mother Mary
Put that music in her face?
Yet she goes with footstep wary,
Full of earth’s old timid grace.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“Franceska: I was happy in the life I built up for myself. I put a fine high wall of music around me and nothing could touch me. I was safe and secure. And then you had to come along and knock it all down and I hate you for that.
Maxwell: On the contrary, you love me.”
—Muriel Box (b. 1905)
“I believe that water is the only drink for a wise man: wine is not so noble a liquor; and think of dashing the hopes of a morning with a cup of warm coffee, or of an evening with a dish of tea! Ah, how low I fall when I am tempted by them! Even music may be intoxicating. Such apparently slight causes destroyed Greece and Rome, and will destroy England and America.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)