Choir Wraps Year with Award Presentations

All choirs performed end-of-year repertoire as part of an annual spring concert at Walnut Creek Presbyterian Church on May 17. The choirs have traditionally performed in Walnut Creek’s Lesher Performing Arts Center, but due to scheduling conflicts, the location was changed.

Apart from being a showcase of repertoire across the choir program, each graduating senior was acknowledged. However, the format of the senior recognition was truncated this year, according to Roberts.

“I love doing what I do and getting to see the 4 years through, and seeing how students evolve and mature and change,” said Roberts. “In a weird way, I feel like I’ve known a lot of the students that are graduating this year longer than 4 years.” Roberts noted that this year’s senior class is particularly small.

The concert also honored select individuals from each choir and from the overall class of 2019 with personal awards saluting musicianship and contribution to the choral program.

Seniors Arriana Glenn and Will Grubbs were commended for their contributions in musical theater, while senior Sydney Bagley was recognized for her cumulative contribution across 4 years of choir with the National School Choral Award.

“I kind of anticipated [getting the award],” admitted Bagley. “I’ve tried really hard in choir, and tried to go above and beyond. It felt really good to be recognized, and I have put in a lot of effort and work into the choir program.”

Senior Colin Lekki was awarded the annual Lindley Hall Scholarship, an award named after the former Campolindo choir director that is exclusively given to graduating seniors pursuing music education.

Culminating the event was a senior-organized moment of recognition for Roberts, in which he was presented with a gift from the senior class, organized by seniors Claire Sebree and Matthew Shieh. All 40 seniors in choir wrote Roberts individual thank you notes and contributed their thumbprints and signatures to a large painted flowerpot decorated with music notes.

“It was bittersweet performing in my last ever Campo choir concert,” said Shieh, adding that despite this, he enjoyed the opportunity to see the “future of the choir program” through other ensembles. “Being able to present [Roberts] with such a meaningful gift from all the seniors was such an impactful way to end my time with Campo choir,” he added.

All 6 choirs in attendance performed a combined piece, “Finale B” from the Broadway musical RENT, to close the concert.

“I have a lot of underclassman friends, so it’s hard to leave them,” reflected Bagley.

“I feel like– though there’s always room for improvement –there’s more cohesion programmatically [this year], in terms of supporting other groups, and the desire to listen to other groups, and all that,” said Roberts.