For many students, high school chorus is more than just a class or extracurricular. Trent Rasmussen, senior at Clarksburg High School, has been participating in chamber choir since he started high school, and believes that his experiences in chorus have allowed him to grow.
“I’ve been singing since I was a kid because of my church and stuff, it’s just how I developed as a person and developed as a musician.” Rasmussen said. “I really enjoy doing pieces of music that are really hard and I really like doing it with a choir that is invested in what they do.”
Schools across Montgomery County boast impressive choir programs that give students similar opportunities to find their own voice. Yet some students, like Rasmussen, move beyond their school and join the Montgomery County Youth Chorus (MCYC), a county-wide ensemble that provides high school students with performance opportunities and gives recognition to talented singers.
MCYC draws its members from active members in school choir programs all over the county. These students have a unique opportunity to share their skills with others and interact with peers who demonstrate similar music abilities and interests. Many participating members of this ensemble go on to being selected as a member of Maryland All-State Choir, All-Eastern Choir and even All National Honor Ensembles.
The Montgomery County Youth Chorus participants have learned to sing challenging music, and they often challenge themselves to convey the composer’s original emotions through their performance.
Hailey-Madison Sebastian, a junior at Clarksburg High School and a member of MCYC, and has recently been selected as a member of the All-National Choir in Orlando in November. She believes that her experiences singing have given her strength.
“Choir really helped me through some of the hardest points in my life. It was so relieving to know that no matter how rough times were, I could always turn to singing; whatever what was going on that day, there was always a song in choir that matched with my respective emotions. It especially helped that we were singing in a group, because it made me feel like I was less alone,” Sebastian said.
Article by Amanda Catipon of Northwest High School
Graphic by Katherine Hua of Robert Frost Middle School