‘Farragut Sings!’ Dec. 17 features 350+ students, 4 Town public schools-NES
“This is our second year,” said Mitchell Moore, co-director with Kirstine Buchanan at FHS. “It is a concert for our community that features choirs from Farragut Primary, Farragut Intermediate, Northshore Elementary, Farragut Middle and Farragut High schools.
“It’s free and open to the public,” Buchanan said.
“Each school will perform their own music in the concert, and then we’ll combine together for the song, ‘Night of Silence.’ And then we’ll have a community sing-along,” she added.
“We think this is important because it shows our community the excellent work of our music programs, starting from kindergarten all the way up to high school. And, it shows the kids how they can stay involved in music all their years in school.
For Farragut youth and children specifically,” it’s an opportunity for them to mentor younger students and encourage their musical growth,” Buchanan said.
“I love it, especially since it’s going to be bigger this year,” Katie Lehner, a FHS sophomore who performed last year as a freshman, said about performing again.
“I think it’s really cool to see how the music, generally, affects everyone … it makes me happy that I started singing,” he added.
“I loved (performing last year),” said FHS senior Kimball Grow, who is in his third year in choir and also participated in Farragut Sings! last year. “It was really fun. ‘Night of Silence’ was so cool to sing with everyone.”
“The high school, who all together sounded really good, and there were a group of girls who went up and they were amazing,” said FHS freshman Mia Fontenot, who performed last year as a Farragut Middle School eighth-grader and related the experience.
“And the babies (primary school students) came up and sung. It was really adorable.”
Performing last year in Farragut Sings! “was really different than middle school because usually it’s a mix of everybody, kind of has the same voice,” Fontenot observed. “They’re all in puberty. But with the high schoolers, it was so amazing. It was ‘wow.’ They were so good.”
Last year, Moore said the concert “was an idea that all of us teachers ended up agreeing and wanting to do.
“It was a collaboration between all of the schools,” he added. “We all really believe in music, and we know the great work that our colleagues do; so this is an opportunity for our students to see and share in that and to celebrate what the other schools in our community are doing.”
Other participating directors include Hilary Hohl and Marcus Smith, Farragut Primary; Allen Ramsey and Hannah Reddick, Farragut Intermediate; Jessie Anne Compton and Leona Williford, Northshore Elementary; and Ruth Bendy and Kyla Johnson, Farragut Middle.
While the event is free, donations will be accepted, which offsets the cost of feeding all of the students.
“That’s one of the ways we want to serve the community is to make sure all of our students have dinner that night,” Moore said. “And, we have parent volunteers and donations and anything we raise beyond (the cost of dinner) will be split amongst all of the (schools’) programs.”
Anyone interested in making a donation or to sponsor the event can reach out to Moore or Buchanan at mitchell.moore@knoxschools.org or kirstine.buchanan@knoxschools.org
