Last week 16 Haines students shone among more than 500 from around the region at the annual Southeast Music Festival in Ketchikan. More students from Haines advanced to the all-state competition than from any other town, and for the first time in choir director Matt Davis’ memory, Haines scored two command performances, the highest accolade that performers can receive. Haines received 12 superior ratings overall.
“People said that Haines is a musical powerhouse,” Davis said.
“All of the adjudicators loved Haines,” sophomore Lydia Andreisen said. “When we got up there, they were like, ‘What’s in the water in Haines? You’re all so good.’ It’s our dedication to music; it’s our passion for it.”
The Haines Man Choir’s rendition of Manly Men became so popular that a picture of the audience’s standing ovation after they were finished circulated as a meme during the festival.
Sixteen-year-old Mark Davis said that Manly Men was his favorite song to perform. Davis sang in the Man Choir alongside Brennan Palmieri, Steven Galinski, Nathan Haas and Logan Borcik.
“That song was kind of in our repertoire for maybe over five years. We practiced this whole year and also last year,” Davis said.
Andriesen, who scored the other command performance for her vocal solo Se tu m’ami, by Alessandro Parisotti, said that earning a command performance for a solo is a rare feat.
“I was really excited. That’s what I’d been working for all semester,” she said.
Palmieri, who received a command performance for a duet he did with Andriesen and another as part of the Man Choir, said that even though Haines did really well at the competition, it was important to him that the group remain humble.
“We are really talented as an entire group, and I am grateful to be here,” he said, “But it’s not about singing in a competition, it’s about making music and sharing that with people.”
Matt Davis said that the adjudicators also remarked that Haines students seemed to draw upon a deep well of music.
“I would like to take 100 percent credit for how their music skills have developed, but I just cannot. They have been taught an appreciation about the fundamentals of music by their piano teachers and by their parents,” Davis said “I was exceedingly pleased with how we did.”
On Wednesday, May 1 at 6:30 p.m., the Haines School Choir will perform all of the songs that received accolades at Music Fest in the Chilkat Center for the Arts. Some of the students will perform at the state Solo & Ensemble Music Festival in Anchorage on May 10-11.