Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2016 | 2 a.m.
The Coronado High School choir's vocal skills have earned them numerous high honor awards at regional competitions, and now the group's talents have earned it a trip to Carnegie Hall.
The opportunity came after the choir won a gold rating of 90 percent or higher at the WorldStrides OnStage competition in San Diego last year. WorldStrides provides competitions in several cities for performing arts, including choir, band and orchestra.
After being two of five schools to score a gold rating in San Diego, the choir was given two options for their prize. The first was to perform with other gold-rated groups at the national Festival of Golds, which Coronado choir director Eric Fleischer described to as the “Olympics of high school choral singing." Or the singers could perform at Carnegie Hall’s National Youth Choir concert, where more than 400 students participate and put on a show.
Based on input from students and their parents, Fleischer opted for performing at the renowned concert hall.
“It's cool because it's not a competition,” he said. “Festival of Gold is a really hardcore competition with students of high caliber. I didn’t want to do the competitive aspect of that at this time.
“I didn’t want to be judged. I just wanted them to sing and have fun with no pressure.”
About 55 Coronado students and about 20 adult chaperones plan to attend the concert on April 3. Students will have just a couple of months to prepare and memorize the material, which includes a spiritual in Latin text, a South African folk song and a choral classic titled, “How Can I Keep from Singing?”
“The music we’re performing is college level,” Fleischer said. “What makes them hard is the vocal harmonies, the foreign language and also the fact that they want us to have all the pieces memorized.
“I’m very excited about this, and I just know that the pressure is on to get the music at the level that it needs to be before we even step onstage. This is all extra on everybody. It’s a very Herculean task for all of us.”
But the students are up for the challenge. Fleischer said preparations would include listening to recordings on their own time and attending evening rehearsals once a week.
“The kids will have to adjust their work schedules to make it work,” he said. “It’s part of the agreement.”
In addition to making sure that the group is ready for the upcoming performance, Fleischer and his assistant, Jeannie Galvin, also are overseeing fundraising for the trip, which costs about $2,075 per person. The total cost is $115,000.
The choir class has been doing fundraisers about once a month, selling chocolate, putting on dine-in nights at local restaurants and selling ad space in their concert programs to area businesses, Fleischer said. The choir members also are accepting donations.
“We still are ways away, but we’re going to get there,” Fleischer said.
In New York, the choir plans to go on a harbor cruise, attend the Museum of Natural History and see "Les Misérables" and "Aladdin" on Broadway.
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