Sahuaro’s choir department has always had a prominent presence at the school. From singing at assemblies, concerts, and serenading students for Valentine’s grams, chances are you would’ve encountered their voices by this time in the school year.

The class is taught by Ms. Barnes and we reached out to a student who’s been in the class three years, Felicity Mattice, to tell us about how choir over Zoom has been going.

According to Felicity, “It’s hard because we can’t all sing with our mics unmuted, so we have to just have Mrs. Barnes unmuted so she can play the piano for us.” Trying to recreate a choir sound over something like Zoom is very difficult due to lagging and different mic qualities, so singing with just the piano playing unmuted seems to be the solution for the class.

Popsta was an annual event that was held as a fundraiser for the choir’s trips at the end of the year. Felicity added in that it was also, “A fun way to show off our skills with either a group or a solo.” No one knows when we’ll all be able to gather for a concert or go on a trip again, so the class is trying to find a way to bring back the sound of their voices that we’re all too familiar with. “We are planning to try and do a virtual choir, so we would record ourselves singing our part and then Mrs. Barnes would put them all together,” is a current idea Felicity says is in the works.

Good luck to our singing Cougars this year and we hope to hear you again soon! Here is a message from the department themselves!