The Chilkat center resonates with holiday music this week. Students from sixth to twelfth grades performed on Wednesday night, and elementary school students are performing tonight, Thursday night.

This is the occasion to showcase the work they do in music class, Matt Davis is the high school music teacher:’

“The sixth grade sounded great just like they always have, they have a nice big sound, They have alto instruments, bass instruments, tenor instruments, trumpets, flutes, with the junior high group, their first song went really well, the second song we made it through although it was kind of exciting in the middle, the high school group we had some people that weren’t there and we had to make some adjustments.”

Davis uses the phrase “making memories” as a euphemism for when things don’t go as planned.

“I said to them about our best performances, they just go flawlessly, we are rehearsing, everything goes normally,  everybody shows up, everybody has their things, we play our music, it sounds just like it did in rehearsal,  and we come away, and we think ‘oh, that went really well’. But looking back, can we remember those concerts? And we can  kind of remember them, mainly we remember it just went really well. But I think this one made some excellent memories for especially some of the high school kids, and we had a great time talking about it afterwards.”

Getting five year olds to rehearse and perform on stage takes a special kind of commitment. Teacher Jennifer Johnson has been at it for eight years. She describes her career as a roller coaster: 

“Every day is full of ups and downs, and big successes and big failures, it seems like for me as a teacher. Sometimes I wonder if I should use a certain instrument, like a kazoo, that’s going to happen tonight and I kind of cross my fingers on that, because I have had times with instruments where it didn’t go so well, and then times where it went great.”

But she keeps going

“You know it is a fun challenge every day, the kids are so excited and so eager to learn anything new. It just takes a lot of love and patience, and I always look at how I do in a day and I’m like OK, how could I handle that situation better? They are amazing, they love performing.”

The elementary school holiday concert is tonight Thursday night at the Chilkat Center from 7 to 10. 

Here is a link to Wednesday’s  performance, and here and here and here and here