Band and Chorus Highlights
Each school year the Big Flats Elementary Chorus, Band, and Orchestra prepare for two formal concerts (Winter and Spring), as well as multiple community performances. Students sing and play a wide variety of repertoire, including patriotic music, multi-cultural music, American folk songs, popular music, and choral and band standards. Through learning the music and rehearsal time, students learn about culture, music theory, music vocabulary, musical expression, performance etiquette, and how to respond and evaluate musical performances. Students reflect on thier performances after each concert and make a list of goals to achieve for our next concert season or performance. It is amazing to see the high performance level and goals these students achieve in only ten short rehearsals before each concert!
 
Winter Concert 2016
 

4th Grade chorus singing the National Anthem!
 
Listen as the 4th grade sing Senua De Dende, a folk song from Ghana! The students created the movement and really enjoyed singing in a two part round!
 
Watch as the students perform Moon Cry by Roger Sams. Students created movement in class, and designed the form! Way to go 4th grade!
 


Spring Concert 2016
 
 

Check out the fourth grade band playing Au Clair De La Lune. This was one of the student selected pieces for our band concert. Students really enjoyed this French folk song and some of them composed their own words to accompany the tune!
 
Gaudeamus is a Latin piece that talks about celebrating and enjoying time with your loved ones. Students really connected with this upbeat piece full of body percussion and dynamic phrasing. Through this piece, fourth graders learned how to sing a crescendo, decrescendo, blending, and about musical phrasing. In learning this piece, the chorus discussed and evaluated which types of dynamics to use in what phrase.
 
Listen to our multi-cultural piece Sansa Kroma! This is a folk song from Africa that talks about a little orphan eagle who leaves his nest in search of new friends. This song symbolized our fourth graders leaving Big Flats Elementary to head off to the Intermediate School.

Listen as the fourth grades sing a round in three-part harmony!


Winter Concert 2015
 
 
 
Greg Gilpin's I See a Star, is a beautiful piece of music that talks about hope and dreams in humanity. The fourth grade really connected with this piece and came up with thier on choreography! Students broke into groups and created thier own movment and then performed it for the chorus. The ensemble chose thier favorite group to represent the chorus in our winter concert! Watch as these fourth graders light up the stage with hope in I See a Star.
 
 
 
 
Each year for our winter chorus concert, the Big Flats Elementary Chorus completes a season of giving community service project. Students brainstorm a list of local organization or charities that they would like to assist during the holiday season and vote on a final selection. In the past the fourth grade chorus has served the Toy’s for Tots program, the Elmira Food Bank, the Back Pack Program, and the Horseheads Animal Shelter.

For our Winter 2015 concert, the fourth graders collected over two hundred canned goods for the local food pantry in support of the Backpack Program.

For the 2014 Winter concert, the fourth grade collected over 100 toys for the Toys for Tots program.

Way to go Big Flats Elementary!