Grand Terrace High School puts on Winter Concert

Last Friday, Dec. 12, at Grand Terrace High School, students, parents and community members gathered in the high school's auditorium to celebrate the holidays with a winter concert themed "Peace." The performance was conducted by Mrs. Anna De Leon, who emphasized the importance of music and performance and its impact on a global and local goal of peace throughout the concert. Starting at 7 p.m., students from the Music Department performed a myriad of holiday classics featuring Grand Terrace (GT) singers, students from music history classes, other various soloists and accompanist Shirly Wang. The program kicked off with a prelude "Goin' to Bethlehem" sung by students Jordan Scott, Vivian Meza, Drew Williams, Megan Ramirez and Jesse Langa. Other holiday classics performed included: "Jingle Bell Dash," "Carol of the Bells," "Where are you Christmas?" and "Song for You." With the combined efforts of the first period music history class, soloist Megan Ramirez and guitarist Anthony Marez, the popular song "All I Want for Christmas is You," was performed. The GT Singers chimed in on the popular Christmas hits by performing "The Little Drummer Boy." Many proud parents and families filled the auditorium as they watched their family members contribute to the musical program. Mistie Bazurto, parent of one of the students in the program, Branden Shepherd, mentioned, "I love being able to see my son perform. All of the performers came together so well." She added with a smile, "My son was fabulous." This winter concert wasn't only to showcase the talented students, and the hard work they put in to making the performance great, but to bring students, families and community members together to celebrate the holidays with some Christmas spirit through music. The song that kicked off the second portion of the concert, after the intermission, was the popular "This Christmas" performed by the fourth period music history class, most of whom had never previously performed before to a live audience. The group included soloists Romello Todd, Jenna Chapman and Jon-Ta McMullen, with the flute played by Tamara Moore. After a few more classical songs, they closed the concert with a powerful performance of a combination of all choirs singing "Silent Night for All the World," where all of the of the students sung in a number of different languages including Spanish, German, and the South African language Zulu.