ILMEA Music Festival

Every day, people wake up and immediately bombard themselves with sounds. They belt in the shower, jam to music during car rides and relax with their earbuds. What makes music so appealing?

On November 19, District 9 had their ILMEA concert. Benet sent twenty-eight students who shared their music and represented some of the most talented students in the state. The concert itself consisted of a freshman choir, a senior choir, a band, an orchestra and a separate jazz concert with a jazz ensemble and jazz band. Benet was honored to boast such a large number of students. The concert was the culmination of their talent, months of rehearsals and passion for music.

When asked what lessons he took away from the ILMEA concert, Patrick Crowe (‘18), replied “No matter how strange and excluded you think you are or your talent is, there will always be someone out there even stranger and more involved in your obscure talent (like music in general) for you to sympathize and create with! Don’t be afraid to share yourself!”

Maddie Barbeau (‘18) said, “The most important thing I learned from this concert was that singing and performing in a choir requires you to give and take. You have to give all of what you have inside of you to make a great, unified sound, but you also have to allow yourself to be moved and changed by the people around you from listening to their sound. Performing in a choir allows each vocalist’s individuality be a part of one beautiful song after another where we get to coexist with other singers without the worry of who’s better than whom. At Benet, the music kids are often auditioning against each other for roles in a show, so getting to be in a choir and appreciate so many great voices at once is a really beautiful thing that means so much to me.”

So what is it that pulls so many of us to music? Is it the comradery with fellow musicians? The feeling of listening to a favorite song? Or perhaps it is the feeling of contributing to something far more powerful than one could have imagined accomplishing alone.