Our kids were unbelievable today. They have worked so hard this year, pushing themselves farther than I expected (and I set a pretty high bar!). Today all three choirs did their very best. Every musical nuance we worked on they hit dead on. When your choir is connected to you in a performance it feels as though you are painting music. Today each of my choirs let me paint a masterpiece. It was so fun! I am a PROUD MAMMA ARMINGTON. Time for bed!

Just in case you’ve been anxiously waiting with bated breath to find out how our choir beasts did, we have the results you’ve been waiting for!

THEY

DID

AMAZING!!!

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Golds across the board!!!

Grade 6  Judge 1   GOLD     Judge 2  GOLD    Judge  3 GOLD!!!

Grade 7   Judge 1    GOLD    Judge 2 GOLD     Judge 3 GOLD!!!

Grade  8   Judge 1    GOLD     Judge 2 GOLD    Judge 3 GOLD!!!

And if a little something caught your eye on one of the plaques, the 6th Grade Choir was also awarded a “With Distinction” award based on their scores (They were only 2.5 points away from a perfect score of 27)!!

And on top of all of that, both the 7th Grade and 8th Grade NMS Bands received Gold Ratings earlier in the day as well!! Must be something in the water at NMS that produces awesome musicians…. Or we just have some amazingly talented kids!!!

We couldn’t be prouder of these kids and the hard work and long hours that they put in to reach this high level of excellence! WAY TO GO BEASTS!!!!

Tomorrow we will be sending a final note home for our choir parents that will include a review of the times, directions to GMS, parking info, and performance information.  In case your copy doesn’t make it into your hands, here’s one just for you!

Click here–> Performance Schedule.docx

Wow!  What great kids we have!  Working on our extremely difficult ISSMA Choir pieces has not been easy.  Repeating music and buffing and shining every nuance is not always fun but our kids have been real troupers these last few weeks.  A few standouts were named as our top Choir Beasts this week!  Here they are:

6th  Alayna Lamley, Riley Rudd, Megan Williams

7th Lauren Hainlin, Thane Stutzman, Nora Spudich

8th Jacquelin Figueroa, Lucas Hoover, Leah Miller

Great Job Kids!!

Choir Parents we could use your help next weekend.  If you are already planning on attending the ISSMA performance, would you please consider riding the bus with our kids as a chaperone?  We need 2-3 more chaperones for grades 7 and 8.  It is a very simple chaperone job.  You would just need to mark students’ attendance as they board their bus,  ride over to Goshen Middle School with them and we will take it from there.  Prior to the performance our ISSMA Chaperones also get to see the “behind the scenes” things our choirs do before they perform for the judges.  You will get a chance to watch them warm up and sing for their judges.  Then after the performance we would again need you to take their attendance as they board buses and join them for their ride back to NMS.  Once you arrive back at the school we would need you to make sure that each student gets into their parent’s hands safely and then you’re done!  If you could lend a hand, would you please email Mrs. Armington asap?  We would greatly appreciate it! Thanks so much!  armingtonj@mcsin-k12.org

Another week (or 2) of students rising to the challenge and standing out as top beasts! Whether it was keeping focused after long days of ISTEP testing or carefully picking apart and cleaning just a small passage of our contest music these kids kept their eye on the prize! Here are the tip-top beast o’the week (and last week)!

6th Grade: Makenna Helm, Shelby Mack, Josh Miller, Bella Nickell, Lillian Tapp, Lucas Wensel

7th Grade: Aubrey Byers, Ethan Dill, Madison Kliewer, Landon Story, Emma Tapp, Tara Vitali

8th Grade: Heidi Flores, Mason Floria, Emily Knox, Ava Miller, Ashley Penzenik

Today we sent home this letter for all of our parents.  It covers the drop off times, performance times, and the “need to know” details to help you plan for our performances at ISSMA 2018.

Here’s a copy in case it doesn’t quite make it home to you!

Click here –>  Final Choir ISSMA Letter 2018

Today our choir beasts are attending a choral festival at Goshen College!  Our rehearsals are now taking place in Reith Recital Hall.  Here’s a peek!

What great kids we have in the NMS Choral Department!  These students were the top Choir Beast in their choir last week!  They were leaders by singing out, staying focused on their music, listening, asking great questions, answering questions, helping their section in sight reading and learning our newest song for ISSMA Choir Competition.  

Here are our LLAM-TASTIC KIDS!

6th:  Jasmin Nisley, Dante Garcia Estrada, Kassidy Meyer

7th:  Gretchen Showalter, Kalli Kaufman, Joshua Straw

8th:  Jericha Oglesbee, Cassie Williams

Often it is hard to pick students who stand out among their peers because we have so many great kids!  We look for leaders in each class. We look for kids who are kind to others.  Soon the students who do their best day after day begin to catch our eye and begin to lead the pack!  Here our our top Choir Beasts this week.

6th Grade: Diana Alcaraz; Megan Frey; Kassidy Meyer; Jeremiah Miller; Jacob Osborn

7th Grade: Jaelyn Allen; Max Schmucker; Landon Story; Willow Thompson; Nicholas Troyer; Addison Wise

8th Grade: James Baklashev; Maddie Clark; Caden Mack; Ava Miller; Hailey Thompson, Hannah Oxford