Music
Mattawan High School offers several instrumental and vocal music classes, both for credit and not for credit. The Marching Band competes in the Michigan School Band and Orchestra Association (MSBOA) and participates in the associated festivals annually. Since the 1980s, the Marching Band has participated quadranually in the Magic Kingdom parade at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. During the Concert Band season, students are placed into either the Concert or Symphonic Bands, divided by students' grade level. Freshmen and Sophomores are assigned to concert band, while Juniors and Senior are assigned to Symphonic band. Both concert bands put on three concerts annually, and attend the MSBOA festival. In 2007, the bands did not attend the MSBOA festival due to the death of a student; all other years, the bands have earned a Division I rating, the highest possible. Not for credit activities include a basketball pep-band. Both the marching band and concert bands are instructed by Bill Boswell and Mark Greer. Former instructors include Larry Jones, Richard Anderson, Jennifer Olfier (Nofs) and the late Bannister Merwin.
The vocal music department is instructed by David Hook. Each year, the department puts on a Drama in the fall, and a Musical in the spring, as well as several other smaller performances, often for fund-raising. The vocal music department also manages the high school's two talent shows. The vocal music program of Mattawan is well known at universities around Michigan. Each year, the Master Singers Chorale, the highest choir at Mattawan tours five different universities on a four day trip. In this tour, the choir works with different college professors on technique, and sound, creating one of the most mature sounding high school choirs in the state of Michigan. Additionally, in the spring the Master Singers Chorale travels to New York where they perform at different venues and colleges. On this tour, students have the opportunity to meet Broadway stars, and participate in private master classes. The students have been lucky enough to work with such people as Placido Domingo's primary vocal coach.
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Famous quotes containing the word music:
“The great challenge which faces us is to assure that, in our society of big-ness, we do not strangle the voice of creativity, that the rules of the game do not come to overshadow its purpose, that the grand orchestration of society leaves ample room for the man who marches to the music of another drummer.”
—Hubert H. Humphrey (1911–1978)
“Westminster Abbey is nature crystallized into a conventional form by man, with his sorrows, his joys, his failures, and his seeking for the Great Spirit. It is a frozen requiem, with a nation’s prayer ever in dumb music ascending.”
—M. E. W. Sherwood (1826–1903)
“Taylor, the Shakespeare of divines.
His words are music in my ear,”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)