By Joel Frady

Whether parents want to see their five-year-olds or 15-year-olds sing and dance, they will get the opportunity

when the choruses from all five Ashe County Schools come together on Tuesday, May 5, for the annual Ashe County Choral Festival. Held in the auditorium of Ashe County High School, the festival will feature individual performances from each school's choir, combination performances and a finale that will feature all five school choirs singing together.

They will perform a variety of tunes ranging from Broadway favorites and spirituals to jazzy numbers. Some of the songs will be performed with accompaniment while others will be performed a capella.

"It's very positive because each of the teachers gets to see what everybody else is doing," said Andrea Spears, choral teacher at Ashe County High School. "It's kind of encouraging because you don't feel like you're the loner, since all of us are the loners at each school, and the community gets to see what we do as a whole."

The festival is coordinated with the help of the Ashe County Arts Council. According to Jane Lonon, executive director of the council, the event is held "to celebrate choral music in Ashe County schools and give our young people an opportunity to perform."

She later noted that it's fun for the kids to be able to sing, but it's also a tremendous learning opportunity. The value of many of the arts, and especially the performing arts," such as marching band or orchestra, is that "you're working together, and it's just like being on a football field. If one person's not doing their job, the total package doesn't work out as well as when everybody's there. Children learn the value of working together, of cooperating, sometimes deferring to somebody else, blending to make it all work. Music is one of those beautiful examples of how it works for young people."

Lonon also said that "for the public, it's a chance to see the sequential nature of where young people start in elementary school chorus" to where they finally end in the high school chorus, which allows the audience to "see the whole progression."

Spears said that the festival provides both a vehicle to instill an interest in chorus into future students and a chance for the high school students to exhibit leadership skills.

"The high school chorus gets to be the seniority there, the group that the other kids in the county look up to simply because they're the oldest," said Spears. She said that since her chorus is mixing music and dance more so than the younger choruses, it will also allow the younger students to see that combination.

"Hopefully, it will appeal to the younger kids," she said. "There are some of the younger kids that are doing movement with their songs, but I'm hoping what our kids do will give them a boost and motivate them to join us when they get here."

Spears said it also gives the high school students the chance "to see kind of where they came from. They're on the top now. I think it's really cool for them to see where they started with music, and get to the level they're at now and see why they like it so good. Hopefully it's something they'll like for the rest of their lives."

The concert will feature each school choir performing two songs of their own. After the individual school choir performances, the elementary schools will perform together. The middle and high school choruses will also perform together.

The show will conclude with a performance by all five choirs, which will feature more than 200 students singing together.

The choirs from the schools are led by: Mary Greene, Westwood Elementary; Pat Lanno, Mountain View Elementary; Chris Watson, Blue Ridge Elementary; and Jan Brice-Nash, Ashe County Middle School.

Both Lonon and Spears said that parents or other listeners will want to arrive early, because seating fills up quickly.

Admission to the show is $3, and the concert will begin at approximately 7 p.m. To find out more, contact the arts council at (336) 846-2787.