District holds all-district festival concerts

By Daniella Coe-McNamara
Cameron Ibrahim
and Cate Schiff
Staff Writers

The Manhattan Beach Unified School District music departments held a series of all-district festival concerts in which students from all MBUSD schools performed in the Costa auditorium in early February.

These all-district concerts have been a tradition for the past 10 years, but this is the first time there has been an all-district band concert. According to Costa choir director Michael Hayden, the purpose of the choir concert, which took place on Feb. 13, is to get younger students excited about joining high school music programs.

“I believe that when our fifth graders and middle school students see what happens at the high school choir level, it inspires them to want to be part of the Mira Costa choirs,” Hayden said.

All of the orchestras from MBUSD performed on Feb. 6, including the elementary orchestras, the honors elementary orchestras, the Manhattan Beach Middle School orchestra and the Costa orchestra. The Costa orchestras performed a variety of songs, including “Aladdin” by Carl Nielsen.

“The change from the elementary orchestras to the MCHS orchestra performance is visible, but every level played to the best of their ability,” Costa orchestra director Peter Park said. “The all-district concert shows a truly developmental sense of how the orchestra students improve over the years.”

All elementary, middle and high school bands performed on Feb. 11. The Costa symphonic band performed “Esprit De Corps,” the Costa wind ensemble performed the fourth movement of “Dance Movement” and the Costa Jazz band performed “Sing Sing Sing.” At the end of the show, all of the bands performed the grand finale, “Valiance,”

“I think that they did extremely well,” Costa band instructor Joel Carlson said. “The songs sounded great, and it was a good, enjoyable performance.”

According to Park, several orchestra members are looking forward to improving their skills and showcasing them for next year’s all-district concert. He hopes to maintain the high level of respect that Costa orchestra has earned.

“I have a lot of hopes for next year’s all-district concert performance,” Park said. “These students really prioritize practicing, and the achievements they have done are not easy. The intense level that they are all performing at is really incredible and almost unreal.”