Westminster Choir College performs for Costa’s music department

By: Yuka Noda
Staff Writer

Listening to music nowadays brings an image of headphones and an electronic device. However, the Mira Costa music department had an opportunity to enjoy authentic acapella music by the Westminster Choir College from Princeton, New Jersey. The college came to Costa to perform their repertoire as a part of their West Coast tour.

In late October of last year, Westminster Choir called the Costa choir director Michael Hayden to see if they could come visit. With Hayden’s permission, the collegial choir performed on Thursday Jan. 15 during 5th and 6th period for students in music theory, music appreciation and choir.

“The tour has been a lot of fun,” Westminster freshman Jeff Vanderlee said. “It’s really nice to be here and listen to beautiful music from lots of different schools. I think the Costa choir is phenomenal, and probably one of the best schools we’ve heard on the tour so far.”

The students of the collegial choir first performed their songs in the auditorium. Afterwards, there was a section of the time set aside for Costa’s vocal ensemble class to perform their pieces and to receive critique.

“It’s a chance for us to sing for a notable conductor of the nation’s premiere choir university, who can offer his musical expertise to your musical repertoire,” Hayden said.

The Westminster Choir College began their first piece by sitting in amongst the audience. They then began to hum and sing their Gregorian chant and eventually got together and sang up on stage.

“I loved the concert,” junior Madeline Angstreich said. “Their repertoire was unlike any other I had ever heard, which was absolutely mesmerizing. I don’t think there was anything that I could look back on and think that I disliked about it.”

After their performance, the Costa choir got up on stage to perform their selection of songs, from ‘Fille de ton Fils’, ‘Awake O North Wind’ to ‘O vos Omnes’. They will be singing these songs for the American Choral Directors Conference from Feb. 25 to Feb. 28, hosted by the American Choral Directors Association.

“This is such a unique opportunity that so little high schools get to experience,” Hayden said. “I am so thrilled that they have reached out to us.”

According to Angstreich, the critical review from the Westminster Choir conductor Joe Miller was important due to their lack of attendance of song festivals this year.

“After our performance, the director came on stage and gave us really informative and honest critiques, which we really needed because we haven’t gone to many festivals this year,” Angstreich said. “After watching the choir, I was really inspired by their organic sound.”

Costa’s Music Theory teacher Mark McCormick gave his class the music sheet to the Costa choir’s songs, along with a few questions which tested their comprehension of the music and the general layout of the music.

“It was interesting to watch the director work with the vocal ensemble,” Matlack said. “What sounded great to me, the director was still able to give advice on what they could fix to make it better.”