Jacob Dimond / jake@yelmonline.com
Thanks to the generosity of the local community and from the efforts of the Yelm High School Choir Boosters Committee by hosting numerous events, the YHS Chamber Choir has reached its fundraising goal to send 43 students to New York City for a performance at Carnegie Hall.
Tim Henderson, director of vocal activities at YHS, previously told the Nisqually Valley News last September that the booster club hoped to raise around $2,500 per student in order to alleviate cost concerns, allowing students to focus on the upcoming performance at hand.
Now, as of Monday, April 14, Henderson told the Nisqually Valley News that enough funds have been raised to send 43 members of the Yelm High School Chamber Choir to the Big Apple to perform.
The students’ concert is set for Sunday, May 11, and they’ll participate in a seven-movement performance called “Requiem Xantolo.”
“The Yelm High School Chamber Choir would like to say thank you to everyone who helped us reach our goal of getting all 43 students to Carnegie Hall in NYC. Without the massive support from our community, friends and family this would not have been possible,” Henderson told the Nisqually Valley News on Monday, April 14. “We are super excited and can’t wait for this exciting event.”
The efforts to send the YHS Chamber Choir to Carnegie Hall were spearheaded by the YHS Choir Boosters Committee, as it hosted numerous events with the sole goal of sending the 43 students to New York City.
The booster club hosted a YHS Choir Benefit Concert for community members to enjoy on Nov. 9, 2024, inside of YHS’s Performing Arts Center, and raised $8,700 toward the chamber choir’s trip. Performances throughout the November 2024 event included alumni or staff, Sarah Burke, Nui Aalona, Henderson, Carolyn Cornwall and Emily McIntire. Students and community members who performed included the high school show choir, the junior show choir, Ryan Sudduth, the Olympic Ballroom Dancers and the NYC Jazz Band.
Then, on Friday, Feb. 28, the booster club hosted another benefit event — this time in the form of a spaghetti feed. Inside the Nisqually Valley Moose Lodge on the final evening in February, the YHS Choir Boosters Committee was able to raise an additional $4,500.
The YHS Chamber Choir even gave the local community a sneak preview of what’s to come in the Big Apple, as they performed two of the seven movements to be sung inside Carnegie Hall.
“There’s seven movements of the work called Xantolo. It’s a requiem mass based on the Day of the Dead. There’s very much Spanish flair throughout all the music,” Henderson previously told the Nisqually Valley News after the preview of the choir’s performance in March. “With Dia de los Muertos, it’s a party. You’re celebrating life. So you do have moments of sorrowfulness within the music, but then the rest of it is a celebration. We’re singing in four different languages. Spanish, that one’s easy. Latin, that one’s easy. But Nahuatl, native to the region of Mexico before the Spanish came, and Tének, which is also native — I had to learn all of these different sounds that we don’t hear anymore. The work I had to do to learn how to teach this has been crazy, but it will be very rewarding in the end.”
In addition to this year’s fundraising efforts, in 2024, students remained busy as they have held several car wash fundraisers at Jiffy Lube in Yelm, and the program previously attempted to sell 200 tickets to a Seattle Mariners game on Sunday, Sept. 29, where it received 50% of the profit from ticket sales.
“The YHS Chamber Choir departs for NY on May 7 to join the rest of the mass choir for final preparations of ‘Requiem Xantolo.’ We will be accompanied by the New England Symphonic Orchestra for our world premiere on May 11,” Henderson said. “Thank you everyone.”
