CCHS Choir Prepares for All-State Music Festival

by Rachel Dahl --  Tom Fleming and his eleven All-State Choir students from the Churchill County High School will travel to Las Vegas next week to perform in the Nevada Music Educators Association All-State Music Festival, and will hold a performance tonight to help raise money for their trip. Supporters can listen to the choir students perform tonight, March 29^th, at a Princess Party at the Old High School, get their picture taken with Disney princesses, and have tea and snacks. The event is $15 and begins at 6:00 p.m. For Fleming the All-State choir trip next week is bittersweet as he retires this year after 33 years in the classroom. He has served on the All-State committee for years, and by tradition holds the Northern Nevada rehearsals for the festival in Fallon leading up to the Festival. “This is a great honor for our students to be selected for the Festival and our School District does a nice job for the choir getting us there,” said Fleming. Student will travel next week, April 3^rd and participate in a flurry of preparational activities, culminating in the final performance on Saturday, the 6^th at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. Fleming teaches several music classes at the high school including: Jazz band, guitar, marching band and concert band, string orchestra, girls choir called Wavelength, mixed ensemble choir called Minor Details. These various groups will be holding several year-end performances, with the band and choir students working toward the Orchestra Band Choir Festival that will be held in San Jose the first weekend in May. Students are currently selling candy bars to raise the money for that trip and can be contacted through Fleming at [email protected] for anyone who wishes to support that trip. The ever-popular Pit Concert will be held on May 10^th this year, in the pit at the Old High School. “This is a big deal,” said Fleming. The concert will be primarily a cappella performances, and Fleming traditionally invites students from other northern Nevada school to participate. They will singing selections from their festival music along with several popular music selections. Additionally, there will be the band concert on May 20^th, and the entertaining, fun Spring Jam concert on May 22^nd. Schedules and details for these year-end performances will be posted soon. Fleming has gone through a bout with cancer over the winter and is just recently out of surgery. He is pushing his doctor’s schedule, but said, “With all this stuff going on I didn’t want to miss it.” “The kids have been wonderful, we really have a great bunch of kids and we’ve been planning for this all year. The kids didn’t want to miss out and I didn’t want to miss out either.” The Minor Details Vocal Ensemble performed recently in Virginia City at the Piper’s Opera House and can be seen in this video singing “Ave Maria.”   Support local, independent news – contribute to The Fallon Post, your non-profit (501c3) online news source for all things Fallon. Never miss the local news -- read more on The Fallon Post home page.