Jr High Blog

The music department has been overflowing with blessings this fall as we have been focusing on tuning our hearts to proclaim God’s grace. Tuning an instrument before a performance is important. If you had the best musician in the world perform on an instrument that was out of tune, they could play all of the right notes, and it would still sound bad. Take Billy Joel on an untuned piano or Yo-Yo Ma on an untuned cello: No amount of expertise and technique can make an out-of-tune instrument sound good. Likewise, as Christ followers, we can try to do all of the right things with our lives, but if our hearts are not “tuned” to the Lord, our work is meaningless. As we have been preparing students to perform music that honors the Lord, we have been striving to do so with hearts that are attuned to Him.

Band, choir, and worship students have had many opportunities to collaborate with each other and perform for our community this fall. Students across many classes and grades performed at our second annual Fall Fest: Music and Mingle. Members of the symphonic band provided prelude music for the National Honors Society Induction Ceremony, and both the band and choir performed musical tributes at the Veterans Day assembly. The jazz band, Shades of Blue, and the worship team filled the Night of Generosity with music from start to finish. The music department has also been able to utilize the new WIN (What’s Important Now) time this year to provide sectionals, lessons, and combined rehearsals that otherwise would not have been possible between different classes.

As our fall events wrap up, we look forward to Christmas. No other holiday is as closely tied to music as Christmas is. Whether it’s the sound and feeling of sleigh bells or the act of singing carols together, Christmas and music go hand in hand. As we prepare to musically celebrate our Savior’s birth, we can easily get wrapped up in the busyness of the season. Rather than relying on our own strength to cut through the noise, we can be reminded that, as the hymn says, His streams of mercy are never ceasing; and that calls “for songs of loudest praise.”

We hope that our upcoming performances will be a special gift for you and your families this Christmas. We invite you to join us at our concerts! We will have two choir concerts on Tuesday, December 9—one at 6:00 p.m. and one at 7:30 p.m. Our band concert will be on Thursday, December 11, at 7:00 p.m. Both concerts will take place in the JH/HS Forum Deo Gloria (PAC). The orchestra will be combining forces with the elementary students to perform several concerts in the community on Friday, December 12, culminating in a 2:15 p.m. concert in Center Court at South Hill Mall. Please join us as we celebrate the season through music!