In honor of March being “Music in the Schools” month, the second grade at the Becker Primary School performed two concerts this week, under the title “Music in Our Schools”.
The second-grade choir is a massive undertaking, filling three sets of risers in the school gymnasium for each performance, all in front of a near-capacity audience of family and friends with cameras of all kinds at the ready as the music began.
Music teacher Erika Bakke arranged the program, which included some hand-gesture choreography, musical instruments and hand props to highlight the performance. The program began with Celebrate the Music by John Jacobson and John Higgins, which the choir reprised as their closing number as well.
The program also included The Music’s In You, by the same composer/lyricist, a delightful rendition of Jazz Hands, with appropriate gestures, It’s All About Music, by 11-year-old composer Ethan Bortnick, and a medley of three American classics: You’re A Grand Old Flag, This Land is Your Land, and America.
In her program notes as to why we celebrate music in the schools, Bakke stressed that students in high-quality music programs score higher on standardized tests, including 100% of the winners of the Siemens Westinghouse Competition in Math, Science and Technology. Bakke also quoted psychologist Dr. Laurel Trainor, who wrote that musically-trained students perform better in tests measuring literacy, verbal memory, spatial processing, math and IQ rankings.
