Superior students play for community

The Superior Elementary School gym was filled with the sounds of music and applause last Tuesday afternoon when parents, friends and students gathered together to listen to the Superior Elementary Spring Concert.

The bleachers were packed and parents were standing and sitting on the gym floor as their children performed music they learned this spring at last Tuesday’s concert.

“I was really proud of them; I think they did a great job,” Superior Elementary music teacher Jaime Pandis said.

The afternoon started off with 24 fourth and fifth grade recorder players performing “Lightly Row” and “When the Saints Go Marching In.”

Pandis said all fourth-graders learn to play the recorder and fifth-graders have a choice of either continuing to work with the recorder or moving on to play in the band with Superior band director Jim Cox.

“There’s a philosophy that everyone should have to learn to play an instrument of some sort, and the recorder’s sort of the stepping stone between not being able to play an instrument and going into band,” Cox said.

Pandis said that while the recorder can be a difficult skill for some students to learn, it is a good exercise for them.

“I’ve seen some of my kids that don’t do well with other things be the stars on the recorders and it’s nice to be able to help those kids that struggle elsewhere,” Pandis said.

After the recorder performance, about 40 kindergarten and first grade students gathered on stage to sing songs about creepy crawly bugs.

They sang “Goin’ on a Picnic,” “Be a Lady,” “Firefly,” and “March of the Army Ants” by John Jacobson and John Higgins.

Pandis said she got the songs from a larger work called Bugz. During “March of the Army Ants,” Madison Mask and Margaret Parkin played the part of the “drill sergeant ants,” giving the other students orders during the song.

“It was a lot of fun,” Pandis said.

Next, nearly 50 second, third and sixth grade students sang a score of patriotic songs, including “Oh Susanna,” “The Capitals of America,” “God Bless the U.S.A.,” and “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

Pandis said the patriotic songs were part of the students’ curriculum.

The crowd stood with their hands over their hearts while the youngsters performed “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

Lizzie Lapierre, Brittney White, Mackenzie Mueller, and Sammi Francis each spoke before a song and told the crowd a little bit about the history of each piece and its significance in American history.

Pandis said she was really pleased with their performance, especially since she did not get to practice as much as she would have wanted since many of her sixth-graders missed practice for track and other activities.

Cox, who spends much of his time working with the band, said he was very impressed with their performance.

The afternoon finished up with a performance of 24 fifth and sixth grade band students playing “Banana Boat Song,” “O Canada” and “Hard Rock Blues.”

Despite urgings from Cox, none of the members of the audience stood for the Canadian National Anthem.

Cox said that due to some shifting around in his sixth grade band’s instrumentation, the students had a challenging time this year.

“This year so many of them switched instruments that it was like starting over with a new band,” Cox said.

Despite the challenges of learning all new instruments, Cox said he was very pleased with the band’s performance as a whole.

“It’s nice to have them together because the fifth grade band has exactly what the sixth grade needs and the sixth grade has exactly what the fifth grade needs. When you put them both together, they really get some great sounds out,” Cox said.

Pandis said she was really impressed with the turnout, especially since the concert was held in the afternoon.

She added that while this may have made things difficult for some parents who wanted to attend the concert, it allowed others who work the night shift and would not normally be able to come to the concert an opportunity to support their kids.

“It’s nice to be able to get so many people here on an afternoon to do this and it’s so nice to work with these kids,” Cox said.