Thurston Elementary holds a fourth and fifth grade concert

Posted on Thu, Apr 1, 2010 : noon

Thurston Elementary holds a fourth and fifth grade concert

By Rita Shelley-Smith

On March 31, Thurston Elementary School held the Fourth and Fifth Grade Concert. The concert began with a performance from the fifth grade volunteer choir. This volunteer choir, directed by the vocal music teacher, Yael Rothfeld, has been meeting at lunch hour to practice for this event since the beginning of the year.Â

The choir is composed of more than 95 percent of Thurston's fifth graders. During their practices they sing songs from all over the world, and sometimes they sing just sounds and single notes. The capable young performers sang the audience into a relative quiet with their compelling musical rendition of the sound "shhhh!"

During their performance, they sang a song from Africa, and a rather unconventional song about Humpty Dumpty. Ms. Rothfeld's love for music shines through the kids when they sing! There is a power in making children miss play time during lunch recess to volunteer for a choir!

The second act of the evening and the stars of the show - the fourth graders - played the recorders and sang songs.Â

During the year Ms. Rothfeld implemented a championship system for the novice recorder players. For each song they learned, they would receive a color belt, just like in marshal arts, with an addition of a multicolor and a gold one. The kids worked hard to earn them! I have some first hand (or rather first and second ear) experience in this matter, as my son Josh constantly practiced in order to get his "belts."Â

Let me assure you that the beginning of this experience sounded perfectly excruciating. And even though I could tell he got much better, I was packing large reserves of patience and tolerance when I was preparing to attend this extravaganza. Imagine, some 50 recorders going at once!

But the fourth graders sounded simply amazing!

They played a long list of songs, not all of which I remember - Don Gotto, Star Wars, Indiana Jones and Harry Potter among them. Ms. Rothfeld did not give the kids the notes for the middle part of the Star Wars song, and they had to figure it out on their own. With the exception of a handful, they all took that challenge and passed!Â

The Indiana Jones was unique too, because one of the students (Liam, I think), figured out how to play it and taught the rest of his class. There was a very interesting composition, where all three grades worked together to compose original music and lyrics to a song which they performed. The arrangement and the choices were really good!

So, I had fun and was very proud of my son, his classmates and their very cool teacher.

Were you there? What did you think? I saw some folks taking photos and videos, would you like to share them?

Rita Shelley-Smith is a contributor who is originally from a small city of Chernovtsy in Ukraine (former USSR) and now lives on Ann Arbor's North Side with her son Josh and her husband Greg. If you have a story you would like to share or point me to, please e-mail me at margarita.shelley@gmail.com.