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Forging Friendships Through Music

By MAGGIE MCMURRAY

Moapa Valley Progress

Members of the Grant Bowler Elementary Honor Choir perform at an area music festival held in Logandale last week which included four schools from the Moapa and Virgin Valleys. PHOTO BY MAGGIE MCMURRAY/Moapa Valley Progress.

Sounds of music were drifting over the Clark County Fairgrounds on Wednesday, Mar. 15 as four local elementary choirs joined together in an Area Music Festival sponsored by Clark County School District. The festival was organized by Grant Bowler music teacher Trish Andersen and included Grant Bowler Honor Choir, Perkins elementary 4th and 5th grade choirs, the Joseph Bowler Elementary choir, and a choir from Virgin Valley Elementary.

The concert was led off by the Bowler Honor choir. The group sang three selections including “The World is Ours,” “Sure As Stars Cling to the Sky,” and “I Feel Better When I’m Dancing.”

Ute Perkins students then took the stage. Under the direction of Raquel Thompson, this group performed 4 Disney pieces including “Hakuna Matata” from the Lion King, “Part of Your World” from The Little Mermaid, “Disney on Broadway”, and “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” from Mary Poppins.

Next to take the stage was Virgin Valley Elementary Choir under the direction of Ms. Bennett, who said the choir was preparing for the school’s production of “Summer Camp” and would be singing two numbers from that musical. They sang “Kumbaya” with students accompanying the singers with ukeleles and shakers. Next they performed “The Place Where I Belong”. During this song, each student produced a flashlight and waved it in time to the music.

Joseph Bowler, under the direction of Lynette Leavitt, was the last to sing. All the accompaniment in this performance was provided by the students themselves. They played xylophones, drums, ukeleles, and other instruments that provided one hundred percent of the background for the singers. They sang “I Wanna Be Like You” and “Colonel Hathi’s March” from the Disney movie The Jungle Book.

For the concert finale, Andersen invited the remaining three choirs to the stand. She announced the last song would be “Make New Friends.”
“This song is an appropriate one for us to all do together to finish because that is what this event is about and that is what we have done today: make new friends,” Anderson said.
“This has been a great event,” said Sue DeHart, Coordinator of Elementary Fine Arts for CCSD who attended the festival. “It incorporated wonderful singing, festive movement, and playing instruments with precision.”

GM Bowler and JL Bowler Vice-Principal Vanessa Moreno-Solis said, “This is a great opportunity for all of our rural schools to join in and share their talents. It also gives them an opportunity to see their friends. I saw kids waving and parents waving at each other as they came in. It’s about strengthening both friendships and a love for music.”

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