Wheaton competition draws top Midwest show choirs
Cassidy Larson knows what it's like to get on stage with her fellow performers and dance and sing her heart out.
The indefinable joy loosed by music has kept the Wheaton Warrenville South High School junior coming back to show choir for five years. She got started with show choir when she was a student at Edison Middle School in Wheaton.
"I just love singing and dancing and being with other people who love singing and dancing," she said.
There will be lots of other people who love musical performance in the school's auditorium Friday and Saturday, March 9 and 10, when Wheaton Warrenville South hosts the 11th annual Choral Classic Invitational at the school, 1920 S. Wiesbrook Road, Wheaton.
About 1,000 students from as far away as Oklahoma, Ohio and Minnesota will join groups from Illinois for a two-day competition. In all, 17 show choirs will compete. Wheaton Warrenville South's all-girls group, Esprit, and its mixed group, The Classics, will perform but will not be entered in the competition.
"We do an exhibition. But we don't compete because we're the host," said Wendy Larson, Cassidy's mother.
Larson, a member of the show choir booster club's board, said the show raises money for the traveling choirs. Proceeds help defray expenses related to travel and costumes.
The Wheaton Warrenville South group recently competed locally in Arlington Heights and traveled to St. Louis. At the end of March, the group will be journeying to a Boston suburb to compete.
Larson said the activity is a contest that also highlights cooperation and camaraderie.
"It's a competition," she said of her daughter's choir involvement. "It's exciting to work hard at something, to be part of a team, to want other people to do well. Everybody is pulling for each other."
"The kids really, really get into it," said Chris Miller, Wheaton Warrenville South's choral director.
Their dedication and enthusiasm has brought a measure of success.
Miller said this season began with The Classics being named Grand Champion at a competition at Crete-Monee High School.
"We also got best band and best choreographer," he said.
Esprit won second place in the single-gender division at the same competition.
Miller leads The Classics' vocal training. He talked about the Invitational as he and a busload of 52 show choir students, along with his sixth-grade son, rumbled down the highway on their way to a competition in Lafayette, Indiana.
"My hope with being a music teacher has always been to have more kids participate in music," he said.
Show choirs build confidence and lasting relationships, he said.
"They form a bond that becomes like a second family. It's exhilarating," he said. "To be successful on top of that is just the icing."
If you go
What: 11th annual Choral Classic Invitational
When: 6 to 10 p.m. Friday, March 9; 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. Saturday, March 10
Where: Wheaton Warrenville South High School, 1920 S. Wiesbrook Road, Wheaton
Tickets: $10-$20 for adults, $8-$17 for seniors and students, free for children younger than 5
Info: (630) 784-7200 or cusd200.org