As a result of the recent Southeast Music Festival in Juneau, six soloists and the 11-member “man choir” from Haines High School have qualified for the All-State Solo and Ensemble Festival in Anchorage May 7-9.
Three soloists – Dylan Palmieri, Neil Little and Madeline Andriesen – and the male choir will attend the Anchorage festival, music teacher Kristy Totten said this week. Students Rachel Haas, Lindsey Jobbins and Victoria Hansen also qualified but won’t make the trip.
The 11-member choir, whose name is officially “Man Sounds,” was among nine of about 90 solo and ensemble acts chosen for a command performance at the music festival.
“They were very well-liked. They got a standing ovation,” Totten said. The group performed “Manly Men,” a humorous piece in which each singer also sings a section solo.
Junior Neil Little said he put together the chorus last year “on a hunch,” inspired by a similar group from Sitka he’d seen perfrom and the movie “Pitch Perfect.”
Some of the group’s members have been performing together since junior high, he said.
“I had a good sense of what they liked to sing and that they liked to sing…It finally paid off, I guess,” Little said.
Last year’s 8-member group, which lost three members to graduation, has swelled this year.
Totten said Haines doesn’t always participate in the Solo and Ensemble Festival, but will this year, partly because such a large number of students qualified. “Having 11 guys, we were able to facilitate my going and Nancy Nash is volunteering to go and accompany these guys.”
Besides “Manly Men,” Man Sounds will perform “Come Fly with Me” as a jazz ensemble in Anchorage. Other Anchorage performances will include vocalists Palmieri, “The Rovin’ Gambler”; Andriesen, “The Lass from the Low Country”; and Little, “O Mistress Mine.”
Twenty-six Haines musicians attended the music festival in Juneau. Man Sounds, the high school jazz band and concert choir each received a “superior” rating from judges.