Lorain Schools holds districtwide musical performance

Schools across Lorain were filled with song on Thursday, as district schools sang "Count on Me" by Bruno Mars in unison. The performance was led by 180 band members and 110 choir members from the Lorain High School gym, but thousands more students joined virtually across all 14 district schools. Shelli Boes, the band director at General Johnnie Wilson Middle School, came up with the idea to celebrate the National Association for Music Education's "Music in Our Schools Month." "I wanted to do something that the whole district could do and highlight music," Boes said. "To show that we're serious about music here." Boes said the event took more than a month of planning, and she started with contacting the district information technology folks to make sure streaming everything together was feasible. She also reached out to Benoit Barrail, the French composer who put together the arrangement of "Count on Me" for choir and band, which the district used. "We bought his arrangement for today, and we wanted to make sure we were following all the copyright laws so I reached out to him and made sure he was OK with us doing this," Boes said. "He was very excited and wanted to be a part of it." The members of the high school's Chamber Choir didn't receive the music until late February, but choir member Selena Sanchez, 17, said it was no issue. "I'm in Chamber Choir so this song wasn't too difficult, but it was really fun to learn and work on," said Sanchez, a senior at Lorain High School. Sanchez said she was uncertain about the idea, especially with Thursday being the first time it was attempted with all the schools involved. That changed when the singing began. "I love to sing, singing is my passion. So just to be able to stand up there and sing with a full group of students actually participating was really fun. … For this being our first time doing that, it came out really smoothly, it was really nice." Boes also said she couldn't have been happier with how the performance went, considering all the moving parts. She had to bring all the band, choir and dance teachers on board, along with every teacher at the middle schools. "(It was) awesome, it couldn't have gone better," Boes said. "Especially with the band and choir, we practiced this one time before this and it's so nice it all came together. Everyone did their homework and came together." The entire performance can be viewed on Lorain Schools TV20, the official YouTube page of the district. Contact Owen MacMillan at (440) 329-7123 or omacmillan@chroniclet.com. Contact Bruce Bishop at (440) 329-7242 or bbishop@chroniclet.com.