FIne arts consists of many classes ranging from music classes to drama, but for three specific seniors, choir has been their fine arts for the past four years.
“I’m so passionate about choir. I love it, and I realised that not a lot of people are gonna be as passionate about it as I am,” said Jack Orthman, a tenor and the choir president.
As his last year of high school choir comes to an end, Orthman talks about how he wants to inspire people to be passionate about something that they can be heartfelt about, similar to how he is with choir. For him, choir has been more than fun but a game changer in his high school experience , especially getting to know people in his choir and experiencing valuable times with them.
“I’m going to the University of Montana and double major in vocal performance and music education, so basically that means I want to be a music teacher and with a vocal performance degree,” Orthman said.
Orthman said he is excited to take his next steps towards his musical career and is ready to embrace the hard work along the way. Some notable famous people who had a vocal performance degree are Lady Gaga and Brad Paisley. Both of them being vocal performance majors, used their degrees to further their careers in singing and amass fame to make them known. The choir teachers work their hardest to keep on motivating and it does it’s justice with students like senior Heidi Clifton.
“I feel like she’s inspired me in ways that are not only related to music but as a person like she believes in my ability to achieve things including voice things. She also supports all my other voice endeavors, which has really helped me grow,” Clifton said of Jordan Lee
Taking pride in her role as a soprano, choir is something that Clifton has done since she was little. She has had several people influence her in her choir journey, one of them being her choir coach Lydia Lee. Due to her constant support by her vocal coaches, Clifton has skyrocketed in her vocal abilities.
“I’ve always liked to sing even from when I was really little, and in elementary school it was kind of a natural thing to do,” she said.
Clifton plans to attend Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, where she hopes to continue with choir and improve her skills even more than she did in high school. Clifton also plays the piano, which has helped enrich her musical experience as well.
Choir also travels, and they get to have fun doing it, connecting with people that they wouldn’t have talked to in the past.
“My favorite thing about choir is probably going on tours or All Northwest, or All-State trips. I really like hanging out with friends and better connecting with people in choir. It gives me a really good chance to connect with friends.” said Josh Schultz, a bass vocalist.
Schultz said his favorite thing about choir has been connecting with his friends by going on tours like ‘All Northwest’ which is a regional tour that brings groups together from Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington and Wyoming. This year, the entire Chanteur choir proudly made it to All Northwest.
“My family is a really musical family, and we’ve always been something musical, and so I always knew it was going to be something I’m gonna be doing for a long time. I just didn’t know that it was going to become my major in college,” Schultz said.
Choir isn’t his only music pursuit however. He also plays the tuba in band and used to play euphonium. Schultz plans to continue his music career at Concordia University in Seward, Nebraska.
